Prospective Evaluation of Applied Energy Research and Development at DOE (Phase One) A First Look Forward (2005) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 Methodology for Prospective Evaluation of Department of Energy Programs
3 Methodology for Prospective Evaluation of Department of Energy Programs
Pages 13-31
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 13... ...
Decision makers must be able to under in Appendix E, to the three expert panels and tasked them stand the critical assumptions underlying the analysis, in with implementing it. As a result of the experience gained in cluding those regarding the likelihood of various levels of these applications over the course of the exercise, the comsuccess and the benefits in each scenario.
|
From page 14... ...
Moreover, having already been used by DOE, these of fuels like natural gas and coal used to generate electricity. scenarios provide consistency and familiarity for future Similarly, the economic benefits associated with carbon analyses.
|
From page 15... ...
It should be considof the programs gave the committee confidence that these ered in addition to the three global scenarios considered in three scenarios take into account key issues across the pro- the prospective benefits matrix -- that is, it should not be grams and that they would be helpful in evaluating the FE viewed as a substitute for or a modification of one or more of and EE programs. those scenarios.
|
From page 16... ...
GUIDELINES FOR CALCULATING BENEFITS Based on the experience of the expert panels convened The retrospective study (NRC, 2001) defines benefits and for this project, the committee concludes that the fundamenprovides rules for their calculation in its Appendix D
|
From page 17... ...
Including all ample, assume that in the example in Table 3-2 there was another possible outcome even more successful ("spectacu 6The discounting issue bears directly on economic benefits and is discussed in economic terms in this section. In concept, environmental benefits could also be discounted on the same basis as economic ones.
|
From page 18... ...
The impact of an outcome on the expected benefits is a useful test of which out Estimating the Net Benefit of Government Support An estimation of the expected net benefit of a govern ment program involves an explicit or implicit comparison of TABLE 3-4 Expected Benefits Calculation Given Four the possible outcomes present with the government program Possible Outcomes, One of Them "Extraordinary" and the possible outcomes absent the program. For example, a government program might lead to a research team making Extraordinarily Very Moderately a significant technology advance.
|
From page 19... ...
Commercial penetration of a moder- to advance enough that many people would choose to purately successful fuel cell car, for example, might be substan- chase hydrogen fuel cell vehicles; thus it is necessary to astially reduced if the fuel efficiency of hybrid-electric vehicles sess the probabilities that these complementary technologies improves dramatically. In cases such as this, it may be nec- will be successful in order to accurately estimate the net benessary to consider explicitly different levels of success for efits of the government program to advance the technology of hydrogen fueling stations.9 8The retrospective study represented the effect of the government pro- 9Note that this treatment of complementary technology allows the evalugram by assuming that government funding had accelerated technology ation of specific programs (e.g., vehicle fuel cells)
|
From page 20... ...
In practice, how ever, evaluators need only accommodate those features that High Success are important in a specific case. As discussed in Chapter 4, the committee believes that an expert panel can identify the Low Acceptance significant outcomes.
|
From page 21... ...
= 813 FIGURE 3-3 Example of decision tree applied to advanced lighting programs (for illustrative purposes only)
|
From page 22... ...
If the government program is viewed as causing the Expert Evaluation of Probabilities development and use of a technology that otherwise would be developed in the same way but at a slower pace, this ef Evaluating the probabilities associated with the different fect is captured in the timing of the estimated stream of benbranches on the tree -- the likelihood of technical success for efits underlying the benefit calculations at the end of the the program and the likelihood it will achieve different lev- with-government-program branch as compared with the timels of market penetration -- is a critical part of the work of ing of the benefits stream at the end of the without-governthe expert panels. The committee believes that independent ment-program branch.
|
From page 23... ...
to make it more "enabling." Enabling technologies are char- DOE often identifies single goals for programs, and these acterized as generating larger-than-average spillover ben- goals may be stretch goals in the sense of being at the high efits; that is, benefits that accrue broadly in society rather end of possible outcome value but having a relatively low than more narrowly to direct private-sector investors in the probability of technical success. Attaining less optimistic research.
|
From page 24... ...
Are there potential environmental has been designed to evaluate. The types of benefits evaluor safety concerns that might limit the use of the technol- ated in the methodology -- for example, economic benefits-ogy?
|
From page 25... ...
The committee believes share the same assumptions, it will not cause them to agree that NEMS is, in fact, suitable for this purpose. For this dison probabilities.
|
From page 26... ...
The committee believes that most of DOE's applied R&D A B programs are covered by these two possibilities. In particu Reduced Marginal Cost lar, the simplified model could be applied in each of the pro of Energy Services grams that were evaluated for this project.
|
From page 27... ...
more costly, the total calculation would be adjusted by sub A numerical example from the advanced lighting program tracting the additional cost of new bulbs. If only a fraction, will illustrate this calculation.
|
From page 28... ...
creases use of lighting services in response to the advance in A second potential component of the net economic ben- energy efficiency. efit is based on changes in the use of the good or service In the example of lighting, assuming that the only change whose cost has decreased.
|
From page 29... ...
However, marginal value and marginal cost is the result of taxes and a reasonable simplifying approximation is that these changes royalties, direct estimation of the unit tax plus unit royalty result in no change whatsoever in economic benefits. would provide the appropriate measurement.
|
From page 30... ...
Here, too, a rea- porting 9 million barrels per day of oil and that as a result of sonable simplifying approximation is that these changes in an energy technology advance, it would be importing only 8 no way change the economic benefits. million barrels per day.
|
From page 31... ...
the estimate would be equal to $5.92 billion, in contrast to Several other calculating procedures, while superficially the actual benefits of $2.96 billion. More appropriately, if useful for estimating benefits, are not appropriate for the one were to calculate the benefits based on the total cost of measurement of economic benefits and should not be used energy to society, a cost of energy of $0.04 per kilowattas net benefit estimates when estimating energy efficiency hour would give an estimate of benefits equal to $2.19 biladvances: (1)
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.