Felder notes that the modeling "forces data collection and analysis, justification of assumptions, understanding of complexities and relationships, and provides rigor means to test intuition and establish orders of magnitude."
Laying out a vision for energy for the next 15 years requires that we explicitly deal with uncertainty. To be sure, we have no crystal balls -- things will turn out differently from what we assume. But that does not mean that we throw up our hands and conclude it does not matter what we do, nor does it mean that we stick to our plan stubbornly no matter what. Instead, policies and their implementation must account for the fact that we will learn as we go. Recognizing that, the Energy Master Plan will be a living document that will retain some flexibility to adjust to the future.
Some things that we expect to learn as we go:
- Whether and how much the cost of renewables will change over time.
- What the costs and benefits of comprehensive energy efficiency practices in government, private sector and in our homes will be.
- How the price of fuels will change.
- What the effects of proposed federal CO2 and other programs might be.
We don’t need the modeling to tell us everything. Some broad policy goals are really no-brainers. For example, energy efficiency makes sense and will play a big part of the proposals in the EMP draft. Countless studies bear out that when energy efficiency is practiced, energy bills decrease, environmental impacts are reduced, and the economy is not harmed. Rather, the modeling provides an illustration of the order of magnitude of these outcomes, it confirms our collective intuition, and it helps my Committee target recommendations for the Governor.
