Tools for Helping State and Municipal Decision-Makers Meet Air Quality, Climate, and Energy Objectives: GLIMPSE and COMET
About This Webinar
Watch the webinar (Originally presented August 15, 2023)
Local, state, and regional authorities are facing many challenges, including those caused by climate change, urbanization, limited natural resources, and aging infrastructure. In developing management strategies, these authorities also have the objectives of promoting economic development, protecting the environment, and providing clean and affordable energy. The result is a complex decision-making landscape. Decision makers would benefit from tools that help them quantify the impacts of potential management strategies, identify the tradeoffs among planning objectives, and develop win-win solutions. EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) has been building two such tools: GLIMPSE and COMET. This presentation will describe how these frameworks can be used to support state and municipal planning.
GLIMPSE is a decision support tool that assists EPA program offices, states, researchers, and others with long-term environmental, climate, and energy planning. GLIMPSE stands for the “GCAM Long-term Interactive Multi-Pollutant Scenario Evaluator,” where GCAM is the “Global Change Analysis Model.” GCAM is an open-source, publicly available human-Earth systems model with state-level resolution. GLIMPSE can be used for activities such as projecting greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions into the future, evaluating the energy and emissions impacts of specific policy options, and identifying cost-effective strategies for meeting multi-pollutant goals. GLIMPSE version 1.0 was released to the public in June 2023.
City-based Optimization Model for Energy Technologies (COMET) is an energy-environment-economic optimization model. COMET is designed to capture the whole energy system at the city level for a user-defined analysis timeline, from the introduction of the energy sources to conversion into useful energy to meet end-use energy service demands. COMET allows users to examine the next 40-50 years of energy technology evolution. The model provides long-term prospects for practical and applicable energy policy solutions, especially for cities that aim to achieve emissions reduction targets.
About the Presenters
Dan Loughlin, Ph.D.
Dan Loughlin is a senior research scientist and project lead with the U.S. EPA’s Office of Research and Development; Dan has been with the agency since 2003. His research involves topics such as energy system modeling, integrated assessment modeling, technology assessment, and uncertainty analysis. Dr. Loughlin is a lead for the GLIMPSE project, the goal of which is to develop a model-based decision support tool to assist states in long-term, coordinated air quality, climate, and energy planning. Dr. Loughlin holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with a specialization in Environmental Systems Analysis from North Carolina State University.
Ozge Kaplan, Ph.D.
Ozge Kaplan is a senior research scientist and project lead with the U.S. EPA’s Office of Research and Development; Ozge has been with the agency since 2007. She has expertise in energy systems modeling, environmental system analysis, energy-environment and society interactions, uncertainty analysis, and decision support. Her research focuses on end-use energy sector technology and fuel trends in buildings, transportation, and industrial sectors. She is leading the development of City-based Optimization Model for Energy Technologies (COMET) and its application to New York City and other cities. Dr. Kaplan holds Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with a minor in Operations Research from North Carolina State University.