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GLIMPSE information session #3: Applications - building electrification and projecting emissions
Citation:
Loughlin, Dan. GLIMPSE information session #3: Applications - building electrification and projecting emissions. GLIMPSE information session #3: Applications - building electrification and projecting emissions, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, July 26, 2021.
Impact/Purpose:
GLIMPSE is prototype air-climate-energy planning tool that is being developed within the U.S. EPA's Office of Research and Development. The purpose of this series of presentations is to provide an update on GLIMPSE development and applications. Attendees are expected to include Program Office and Regional colleagues, state air quality and climate planning staff, and several university researchers and educators.
Description:
GLIMPSE (the GCAM Long-term Interactive Multi-Pollutant Scenario Evaluator) is a decision support tool for considering environmental, climate, and energy goals in long-range planning. Using GLIMPSE, decisionmakers and analysts at the national, regional, and state level examine potential policies, investigate the impacts of emerging technologies, and develop cost-effective strategies for meeting air pollutant and greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation targets simultaneously. Additionally, GLIMPSE can be used in a classroom setting, providing students with the ability to use a state-of-the-art human-Earth systems model to investigate alternative scenarios of the future. GLIMPSE is built around the Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM), an open source, publicly available integrated assessment model. Human systems represented in GCAM include electricity production, industry, transportation, buildings, agriculture, and labor. Natural systems include water and climate. In this presentation, an illustrative application involving building electrification in New England is presented. The electrification scenario serves as a bounding analysis, requiring all building technology purchases from 2025 to be high-efficiency electric options. Outputs evaluated for this scenario include energy savings in the buildings sector, changes in electricity demands, and net impacts on carbon dioxide and air pollutant emissions. In addition, methods for translating GCAM emission outputs to air quality model inputs is discussed.