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Energy Pathways and Open Source Tools for a Net-Zero Future: Highlights from the SE4ALL Global Forum

By Elena Crete, Head of the Climate & Energy Program

The sixth SEforALL Global Forum concluded last week, hosted by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and SEforALL CEO, Damilola Ogunbiyi. The Forum showcased bold thought leaders working to advance the clean energy transition, with energy practitioners, Ministers, and researchers gathering to share solutions, breakthroughs, and tools to enable pathways to sustainable energy for all. During the conference, several modeling tools were showcased to support nations in updating their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and identifying low-regret strategies for more robust, resilient, and dynamic economies of the future, with clean energy-based grids and infrastructure as their backbones.

Comprehensive energy planning was highlighted as key to scaling clean energy investments. The overall conference message was clear: to secure a sustainable future, countries can and must build their internal capacity to take charge of mapping pathways for a more modern, resilient, and affordable clean energy future.

Fortunately, open-source modeling tools and training are becoming more accessible to support countries and subnational government decarbonization planning. Some of the featured tools and pathways at the conference included:

  1. SEforALL works with countries to develop Energy Transition and Investment Plans (ETIPs) using their n in-house open-source modeling tool, Energy System Model (SEM) – to help countries map their clean energy potential. So far they have helped Barbados, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone to create scenarios and are just starting work in ASEAN. In the same vein as SDSN’s San Diego Regional Decarbonization Framework, SE4ALL is also working to link its outputs to geospatial tools, like OnSSET, so that quantitative technology pathways can be contextualized to geographic landscapes and realities.
  2. Climate Compatible Growth (CCG) initiative, is a UK Aid-funded project that works to build in-country capacity for energy system modelers and planners to navigate the ever-evolving global energy landscape. The initiative’s teams have already successfully trained researchers from Kenya, Zambia, Ghana, Vietnam, Lao PDR, and India. The program relies on a central open-source modeling tool, OseMOSYS, which can then be linked to other modules that encapsulate key parts of the energy transition landscape, such as geospatial planning and project readiness assessments. CCG’s ecosystem of open source tools comprises the “IMPACCT framework” to link power, land, water, emissions, finance, and more for economy-wide quantitative sustainability planning. Stemming from a decade of practical hands-on research, this trainer-of-trainers model aims to fill the energy modeling capacity divide and bolster emerging nations with the tools to map their clean energy future and diversify their economies independently.
  3. IRENA’s Long-term Energy Scenarios (LTES) Network has been providing support for governments in their long-term planning for quite some time. They do so by working closely with country counterparts to ensure long-lasting energy planning and inter-ministerial collaboration.

These are just some of the tools and initiatives countries are using to update their NDCsas part of the Paris Agreement, due in September this year. The overall capacity for leveraging state-of-the-art technology, alongside increasing affordability of renewables, is shedding a bright light on a clear path forward for the most ambitious and forward-thinking countries. Learn more about the Forum and some of the exciting announcements that were made here.