Advanced Model Development and Validation for Improved Analysis of Costs and Impacts of Mitigation Policies (ADVANCE)

Overview

Integrated assessment and energy-economy models have become central tools for informing long-term global and regional climate mitigation strategies. Sound policy advice requires improved representations of complex system interactions and thorough validation of model behavior in order to increase confidence in climate policy assessments.

ADVANCE aims to respond to this demand by triggering the development of a new generation of integrated assessment models.

This will be achieved by substantial research and development work in key areas where model improvements are highly beneficial:

• end use sector representation and energy service demand; 
• representation of consumer heterogeneity, preferences and behavior;
• technical change and uncertainty; 
• system integration of variable renewable energy sources, path dependencies and resource constraints; 
• economic impacts of mitigation policies.

In the past, widespread implementation of methodological innovations and improvements were hindered by the unavailability of detailed documentation and suitable input data. The ADVANCE project will make a large and coordinated effort to generate relevant datasets. These datasets, along with newly developed methodologies, will be made available to the broader scientific community as open-access resources. ADVANCE will also put a focus on improved model transparency, model validation, and data handling.

ADVANCE is a 4-year research project that started in January 2013, with fourteen partners from Europe as well as international partners from North America and Asia.

IIASA Research

Researchers from IIASA's Energy Program will lead two work packages in ADVANCE on “model transparency, validation and common databases” (WP1), and on “demandside heterogeneity and consumer choices” (WP3). In addition, IIASA will participate in the other WPs with its integrated assessment model MESSAGE.

Last edited: 06 December 2013