One comment and a short update. I am sticking with my policy of not naming names (beyond Extinction Rebellion) for now.
Regarding poorly thought through scenarios. Running the scenarios adds a certain rigor to the process. For instance, local and regional energy autarky has quite a following in green circles in Germany and doubtless elsewhere. As most here will know, renewable energy has to be shifted in time (storage) or space (transmission) to cover some given demand trajectory for energy services (exhibiting various degrees of flexibility and importance). So those favoring flat or reduced transmission capacity will, speculatively, find such systems exhibit low aggregate efficiency (round trip storage being more lossy than transmission) and/or high curtailment (harvesting technologies being cheaper than storage technologies), both with significant implications for affordability and ecological cost. It matters not whether my example is correct — the point is that the process of modeling embeds its own exigencies. And if some mavericks manage to locate unorthodox high performing solutions, well that’s great! Weise et al (2014) expands on this view of open modeling as a necessary condition for public participation.
The NGO reactions thus far have been interesting. I would say most have little to no idea as to:
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the potential of open development and how the associated communities might function (beyond Wikipedia)
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the potential contribution of (open or closed) energy modeling to decarbonized futures (beyond Microsoft Excel)
One established NGO commented that they like their reports to create a “splash”, meaning they can promote their conclusions on mainstream and social media and gain publicity. I’m not sure if open development excludes that activity, but it is something to bear in mind. And this activity is certainly not limited to NGOs — scientific bodies also have media teams who would probably strongly resist a move to “continuous integration”. I think I’ll file this issue under “institutional ego”: something that does not sit well with FOSS development.
One NGO asked about including land use in our assessments. One approach is the nexus concept, which some projects are now working toward (Brouwer et al 2018).
@tom_brown pointed out offline that analysis using SWITCH was used to simultaneously support and advocate for a law on 100% renewable generation by 2045 for Hawaii. Fripp (2016) provides background.
The openmod “associated” (the openmod cannot apply in its own right) COST application (discussed here) will probably include a component for NGO outreach. So we need to think about how that might be best operationalized.
Finally, those who like to loiter on twitter can follow #freethemodels By all accounts, similar sentiments to those here but quite a different audience.
References
Brouwer, Floor, Georgios Avgerinopoulos, Dora Fazekas, Chrysi Laspidou, Jean-Francois Mercure, Hector Pollitt, Eunice Pereira Ramos, and Mark Howells (1 January 2018). “Energy modelling and the Nexus concept”. Energy Strategy Reviews. 19: 1–6. ISSN 2211-467X. doi:10.1016/j.esr.2017.10.005. Creative Commons CC-BY-4.0 license.
COST. What are COST actions?. European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST). Webpage.
Fripp, Matthias (29 June 2016). Consensus-based power system planning using open assumptions and models — Presentation. Manoa, Hawaii, USA: University of Hawaii.
Wiese, Frauke, Gesine Bökenkamp, Clemens Wingenbach, and Olav Hohmeyer (1 September 2014). “An open source energy system simulation model as an instrument for public participation in the development of strategies for a sustainable future”. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment. 3 (5): 490–504. ISSN 2041-840X. doi:10.1002/wene.109. Paywalled.