Community Energy Planning

Overview:

Community energy planning is an emerging practice field that complements other forms for municipal and regional planning, including land use planning and transportation planning.

Community energy planning involves:

• Analysis of current power needs of the region and projections of future demand.
• Analysis of options for meeting future power requirements, with an emphasis on alternative energy sources that maximize reliability; minimize costs; and minimize green house gas emissions.
• Analysis of options for demand management that reduce overall consumption.

USA Network Capabilities:

USA partner CNT Energy has extensive experience in development of community energy plans at the municipal and regional levels, including:

• Experience working with multiple and geographically disparate data sources for energy use including: electric and gas utility data; vehicle miles traveled; fuel sales data; aviation data; and data from the Energy Information Agency and other official government sources.
• Experience with evolving regulatory and market conditions, including the operations of regional grid operators; the evolving role of the state power agencies, and an appreciation of the impact of restructuring of electric markets, including and the enactment of Renewable Portfolio Standards, Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standards, and other policy innovations.
• An understanding of regional growth issues and politics.
• Expertise in forecasting energy supply and demand, next generation technologies, advances in renewable energy, and the alternatives within conventional generation sources such as the resurgence of nuclear power and clean coal technology.

The two key deliverables in community energy planning include:

• Regional Energy Profile. The development of a regional energy profile that describes energy sources and use in the region, by end user.
• Regional Issue Analysis. Analysis of regional issues and opportunities associated with three different energy consumption scenarios: business as usual; moderate emissions scenario; and low-emissions scenario. The analysis seeks to identify strategies for reducing demand through energy conservation and efficiency and for improving supply through policy leadership, development of renewable energy, and distributed generation. The analysis also identifies potential strategies, quantifies and compares the impact of the various strategies, and identifies the political, economic and technical feasibility of implementing these strategies.