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The Virginia Clean Energy Project research involves analyzing and creating strategies for decarbonization of energy systems. The primary focus is on Virginia, which recently adopted legislation committing the state to a complete phase-out of carbon-emitting sources from its power generation system by 2050.
As a multi-disciplinary team including economists, engineers, and others, we address these issues through a wide range of activities including simulation modeling of the Virginia electricity system; building and deploying decision dashboards; reviewing and summarizing technical and policy literature, and more.
Our team uses a data-driven open-source modeling framework to conduct energy system analysis. Using historical data of energy production and consumption, we are able to simulate future scenarios for the state of Virginia when various policies are imposed. Simulated future scenarios help us better understand the impact of current clean energy policies, and make data-driven recommendations on future policies. Below is the initial model created by one of our team members for Virginia's energy system.
One of the major goals of this project is to create, design, and deploy public dashboards showing relevant data and trends in clean energy. The dashboards are intended to be a resource to compare different states in their progress toward renewable energy, especially Virginia, through presenting visual data that users can interact with. Subjects that will be investigated for inclusion into the dashboards also include energy grid modernization, energy equity for different demographics, energy consumption by sector, and energy storage.
A major component of the policy research for the VA Clean Energy Project involves detailing the clean energy policies and initiatives in other states, in order to better understand how Virginia should proceed in phasing out carbon-emitting methods of energy generation. In addition to clean energy initiatives in the United States, our team is also interested in looking at clean energy policies abroad to gain further insight to the strategies that have worked and not worked in other areas of the world.