Energy analysts from twenty-seven federal and state agencies and research institutions, led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), have joined forces to improve the tools used to analyze public energy policy. Among the priorities identified by the Energy Collaborative Analysis Initiative was the need to reflect the full impact of energy policy, widening the models from pure cost considerations to include economic development, environmental impact, energy security, health and reliability.

This team of analysts identified eight priorities in energy analysis for the next five years:

• Enhance Research, Development, and Deployment Portfolio Analysis Tools
• Improve Deployment Partnerships between Industry and Government
• Augment Energy Technologies and Demand Response Representation in Energy Models
• Enhance Regional Technology Characterizations and Transmission Constraints in Energy Models
• Improve Impact Evaluation Tools: Economic Development, Energy Security, Environmental Impacts
• Improve Policy Analysis Tools and Integration of Data/Tools at State and Federal Levels
• Enhance Biofuel Resource Potential and Infrastructure Analysis
• Improve Behavioral Factors in Market/Choice Models and Tools

This initiative also detailed a list of needed improvements to increase the fidelity of existing models and methods. This list points to a lack of consensus in the analytical methods currently used to manage public energy policy. The desired improvements include: a common language with agreed upon definitions, a stronger link between state and federal agencies, a central clearinghouse for available data, peer review to validate proposed models and methods, best practices which can be easily understood by policy makers, and the expansion of potential impacts.

As the demand for alternate energy continues to grow, existing models must capture how new technologies emerge, mature and saturate existing markets. Energy analysis is advancing to consider new issues such as carbon capture and storage on the old problem of locating coal fired power plants. Analysts participating in this initiative even questioned if economics was the appropriate language to discuss the long-term, global issue of climate change and energy policy. All of these ideas represent significant steps forward in understanding how energy can be sustainably managed for the common good.

It appears that the energy analysts who work to inform our policy makers have set a worthy goal for themselves. It remains the job of the voting public to hold the ultimate decision makers accountable for the wise application of these advances.