Dynamic Populations and Energy Planning Catalyzer
The Dynamic Populations and Energy Planning Catalyzer is leveraging expanded data availability and computational analytics to improve energy planning through enhanced population projections.
Energy modeling provides projections of future energy system needs and resources to help inform energy planners and policy makers. Reliable projections empower these decision makers to provide affordable, safe energy access that is critical to economic prosperity and energy security, however, these projections are increasingly difficult to develop as energy use patterns evolve to respond to changing social, political, and economic environments and to support emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence.
Population Dynamics
A critical factor impacting energy use patterns and modeling is population dynamics. The U.S. Director of National Intelligence’s global trends indicate that populations are changing across national borders and within certain countries due to social issues, geopolitical drivers, environmental changes, and economic opportunities. These changes impact energy supply and demand, which can have an overall effect on industrial and societal health if those changing needs are not met. To date, however, the intersectional areas of population dynamics and energy demography have not been evaluated in terms of their representation in energy system planning—and the gap may be driving uncalculated risk in energy sector investments. Maximizing the efficiency of public and private infrastructure investments in energy systems requires comprehensive and geographically granular energy use projections inclusive of future population scenarios.
Energy Demand Projections
The goal of the Dynamic Populations and Energy Planning Catalyzer is to lay out pathways and project teams to improve highly granular energy demand projections in the United States. This catalyzer engages demographers, energy planners, computation scientists, uncertainty experts, real estate and investment expertise, energy and insurance analysts, and a wide array of industries. Through webinar series, workshops, peer reviewed journal articles, and network development to improve energy planning and investments, the catalyzer explores forward-looking population projection techniques, quantitative and qualitative energy analytics approaches, and cutting-edge risk and uncertainty calculations. These efforts will help prioritize data and analytic integration across fields and identify areas where further developments are needed to ultimately provide energy decisionmakers with the tools needed to build an efficient, reliable grid.
Publications and Related Work
Partnership Opportunities
If your organization is interested in the intersection between dynamic populations and energy planning, we encourage you to reach out to explore opportunities for collaboration.
Contact
Elizabeth Doris
JISEA Director
[email protected]