Erica Attard

Topic

Communicating Net-Zero Climate Policy and Energy Modeling Results via an Interactive Visualization Dashboard

Department of Civil Engineering

Date & location

• Monday, September 9, 2024

• 10:00 A.M.

• Virtual Defence

Reviewers

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Madeleine McPherson, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Victoria (Supervisor)

• Dr. Christopher Kennedy, Department of Civil Engineering, UVic (Member)

• Dr. Charles Perin, Department of Computer Science, UVic (Non-Unit Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Ian Mauro, School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria 

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Lucinda Leonard, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, UVic 

Abstract

The Canadian Government has pledged to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. To achieve this target, energy modeling is required to evaluate different decarbonization pathways and possible policy options, however, its impact is currently stunted due to a communication gap between energy modelers and stakeholders. This thesis presents the development and testing of the Integrated Dashboard for Energy transition Analysis (IDEA), an open-sourced tool used to address the communication gap and promote evidence-based decision making. IDEA enables policy makers to evaluate decarbonization pathways and complex policy decisions through the use of visualizations and an interactive dashboard. A Human Centered Design process was implemented to develop a prototype dashboard and evaluate its functionality and applications. Key stakeholders including Environment and Climate Change Canada, Natural Resources Canada, the David Suzuki Foundation, Clean Energy Canada, BC’s Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation and BC’s Climate Action Secretariate were involved in the development and evaluations. The contributions of this thesis include a fully tested visualization dashboard that is adaptable to multiple models and visualization types as well as a detailed discussion on the current and future applications of IDEA. IDEA successfully operates as a results analysis tool, enabling modeling teams and stakeholders to evaluate complex policy decisions. Future applications include expanding IDEA to a key insights tool, supporting decision makers with the most pertinent information, and a modeling tool, allowing stakeholders to implement their own assumptions and model formulations to conduct independent evaluations. Future work includes implementing the discovered improvements to strengthen IDEA as a results analysis tool and further investigating the feasibility and impact of the other tools uncovered.