VantagePoint: Carbon Scenario Planning Tool
This piece of software is designed specifically for local and regional authorities to develop climate change mitigation strategies in a rigorous and authoritative manner. The tool has been used in a mix of urban and rural locations by over 50 organisations.
What does it do?
The tool can be used by the local authority or by Carbon Descent to create a carbon reduction strategy. It can also be used in a workshop setting by members, officers or community groups. A range of scenarios made up of energy generation, behaviour change, infrastructure and policy measures can quickly be generated and compared.
The process is relatively simple and allows you to:
- Select a local or regional authority; upload its profile from nationally verified statistics to populate the baseline emissions for year zero. The initial values can then be refined to create
a more precise picture for your region - Forecast emissions from population growth, rates of demolition, new build and transport statistics
- Add to or amend the base technology mix and establish the maximum potential for all carbon reduction measures. You can also apply costs for those technologies, which will vary from location to location
- Select a carbon reduction target for 2050 (or earlier) and choose linear or non-linear interim reduction targets and create the first scenario
- Analyse a mix of technologies and measures modelled for transport, domestic, commercial and industrial buildings to achieve the targets, tailor this mix of measures and save the scenario
- Create a range of further scenarios meeting the same or different targets and compare across number of factors
The Carbon Descent VantagePoint software provides a vision for possible energy mixes for the local authority which underpins the climate change strategy.
What are the benefits?
- The software is simple to use and local authority officers can design scenarios and then manage progress against these targets
- The methodology is rigorous and robust and the model has been tried and tested by over 50 organisations at local and regional level
- The model identifies nominal capital costs and can be updated based on local information
- The tool can be used to help the authority plan for climate change
VantagePoint 2.63 now contains:
- Copy and paste facility now available forthe ‘Define scenario’ grid
- Fix for entering capacity values formeasure bands
- Logical flow of scenario development
- The ability to select different baseline years
- Improved calculation of carbon savings using a weighted emissions factor based of the mix of fuel
- Reference data (2006, 2007 baselines and associated consumption figures, fuel prices, etc) and the ability to add and customise your own reference data sets and groups for use in multiple scenarios
- The ability to import and export scenarios as text (XML) files between different installations of VantagePoint, allowing counties or regional bodies to import individual district or sub-regional scenarios
- The ability to copy and paste results tables (in addition to graphs) into Word/Excel/PowerPoint etc and export tables as Excel spreadsheets
- The ability to locate database in server location of your choice
- The ability to create new areas by combining values from existing areas
- The ability to add your own measures, customise the measures to be included in a scenario, and to activate/de-activate these as needed
- Measures are sub-divided into bands for use with Feed-In Tariffs
- Context sensitive help
Contact us for further information and access to a 14 day demo. Email: software@carbondescent.org.uk