Impacts modeling helps policy makers determine what products to regulate or label within energy efficiency S&L programs, while impacts assessments evaluate the effectiveness of established S&L policies.
CLASP develops impacts modeling resources for the global S&L community and provides support to governments and policy makers performing domestic product prioritizations or conducting impact assessments for domestic or regional S&L initiatives. Each of these types of analyses calculates expected or actual impacts of S&L programs on energy and economic indicators.
S&L impacts modeling and assessments help policy makers visualize the money-savings impacts for consumers and the electricity-consumption savings impacts for society. Policy makers use this information to help focus regional attention and resources on establishing, enhancing, and expanding S&L.
Impacts Modeling
Before developing or revising energy efficiency S&L policies, impacts models can forecast policy impacts on local, national and regional economies and energy use. CLASP has developed two impacts models in collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and other key stakeholders: the Policy Analysis Modeling System (PAMS) and the Bottom-up Energy Analysis System (BUENAS).
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PAMS uses country-specific and product-specific data to calculate estimates of the energy savings, emissions reductions, and national consumer benefits of S&L initiatives. PAMS – which can be run with minimal user inputs – is especially useful for developing countries lacking access to large amounts of data.
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BUENAS forecasts global energy consumption by end-use and enables the assessment of global and regional impacts of different S&L levels. BUENAS – which can be adjusted to model different macro-level economic scenarios – analyzes and projects both residential and commercial building energy use.
Product Prioritization
CLASP works with governments and policy makers to create country-specific product prioritization tools to help determine what products to select for S&L development or revision. Countries and regions customize product prioritization analyses to reflect their economic reality, energy goals and cultural priorities. Product prioritization variables include life cycle costs, energy savings potentials, greenhouse gas abatement potential, market share, number of manufacturers, or the existence of test procedures for each product.
Impact Assessment of Standards
CLASP assists governments and policy makers in determining the estimated energy and economic impacts of established standards programs, including collecting data and evaluating effects on consumer energy bills, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, equipment cost effectiveness, manufacturer costs, retail sales, and national or regional energy consumption. Impacts assessment data can be used for forecasting energy use and resource planning. When impacts assessments reveal weaknesses in programs through comparisons between the predicted and actual effectiveness of S&L programs, CLASP assists with S&L revision.
Impacts Assessment of Labels
CLASP helps governments and policy makers perform impacts assessments of labels. This effort involves tracking market indicators and performing interviews to better understand the attitudes and decision-making processes of consumers and retailers. Impacts assessments of labels provides information about when to adjust efficiency grades upwards to maintain the success of a labeling program as well as increased understanding of the impact of the label on retailer and consumer decision making
Example: CLASP Provides Product Prioritization Assistance to India
Policy makers in India developed a list of 57 potential products to incorporate in their energy efficiency S&L program and identified the need for structured criteria for determining which products to select first. CLASP provided technical assistance to India through collecting data on greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement potential and data on peak-load times to prevent brown outs. CLASP also sought out expert input to determine market implementability. With data in hand, CLASP created a product prioritization model to analyze this information and provided a clear and coherent prioritized list of products for India's S&L program. The prioritization tool will continue to be useful in the future as it allows Indian policy makers the flexibility to revise product ranking based on changing priorities.