Tools-for-Hope: The Future Can Be Better Than The Past

A Solution for Doom-scrolling: Do headlines about climate change leave you feeling hopeless, helpless and powerless? Do you feel guilt towards kids and the world they are inheriting? Are you surprised to hear that we can have a future that is not just livable livable – that is abundant?

New tools are required: we can’t do this without a new set of creativity tools and an updated scientific basis for crafting and co-creating our future.

Get the resources you need to help build a climate resilient future

This new business is developing the solution packages to equip you with the tools you need to orient towards, plan for, and ultimately bring others along on our journey towards a radically better future. The course will be developed in 3 phases.

Right now we are hard at work on the first phase. If you’re interested in finding out more or getting involved, please share your information in this form

Transforming Our Gestalts

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Gestalt/noun/: Something such as structure of experience that, when considered as a whole, has qualities that are more than the total of all its parts.

By understanding how systems transform and what are our most impactful levers as normal citizens we can create whole new visions of the future.

BBC Interviews:

Green Energy: Some Inconvenient Truths https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct43ds

Electric vehicles hit the big time https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct1jnf

Community Solar+: A Better Value Proposition

Community solar has helped to make solar energy an option for many people who can’t put it on their own roof. Learn how CS+ is innovating to help more innovations reach a broader audience.

Community Solar+

Community Solar Procurement Guidance

The Community Solar Procurement Guidance Help Cities understand what roles they can play in procuring community solar, depending on their regulatory environment, and what steps they can take to do so.

Breakthrough Batteries Report

Breakthrough Batteries

Rapid advancements in battery technology are poised to accelerate the pace of the global energy transition and play a major role in addressing the climate crisis. With more than $1.4 billion invested in battery technologies in the first half of 2019 alone, massive investments in battery manufacturing and steady advances in technology have set in motion a seismic shift in how we will organize energy systems as early as 2030.

Graduation Video

I was fortunate to be chosen as the outstanding graduate for the School of Sustainability, which means a video about my research was shown at graduation.

Dissertation Defense Presentation

The livestream from my Dissertation Defense, complete with awkward laugh, is here:

SCORE Algae

SCORE algae is great!

Probabilistic Modeling of Electricity Grids

“As utilities shift toward integrating increasing amounts of DERs into their systems, they will be relying upon these resources to complement energy procurements from the wholesale market. The nature of these DERs and associated properties with respect to intermittency and various levels of reliability, however, need to be integrated into the planning process. Therefore, the Guidance Proposal recommends that the utilities identify a process to move from deterministic to a probabilistic modeling approach for distribution system planning.”^[1]

^[1] State of New York Public Service Commission Case 14-M-0101 -Proceeding on Motion of the Commission in Regard to Reforming the Energy Vision. Order Adopting Distributed System Implementation Plan Guidance. Issued and Effective: April 20, 2016

Why Model Grid Infrastructure Probabilistically?

Given the small spatial scale of DER, the temporal variability, and incorporation of human preferences, optimization modeling of DERs is problematic. To cope with the number of variables and new types of uncertainty that are presented by a distributed future, it has been well documented that a probabilistic approach to modeling more distributed energy futures is desirable. An agent based model (ABM) of a probabilistic grid, one that is realistic but not real, can help integrate feedback between DER adoption and use futures with physical investments in the grid.

How?

Probabilistic grid generated from Chicago GIS input files

Procedural and Pattern oriented modeling (POM) can help improve to move beyond fixed asset or market optimization towards probabilistic infrastructure investments. Cities are characterized by self-similarity, or fractal scaling. This means that a subsection of a city will demonstrate the same overall properties as larger sections and other sections.  The use of the self-similar properties of cities can help, by enabling methods to “grow” realistic , but not real, energy grids based on GIS inputs.  For a complete description of the model and documentation see:  https://www.comses.net/codebases/6006/releases/1.0.0/

 

Findings: Focus on Differences in Demand not Supply 

More on the model results will are forethcoming

The Scale of Smart

In a smart city there may be many different levels of decision making and data aggregation.   Decision making at one level can affect decisions at another level.