CEKAP aims to improve data-driven decisions and the use of decision-support tools within community energy planning and local policymaking.  In September and October 2017 we hosted a series of half-day workshops in Toronto, Halifax and Vancouver to share expertise, and seek feedback from practitioners, on community energy decision support tools.
The workshop explored three questions:

• What analytical tools are currently available to community and corporate energy managers to make decisions about local energy initiatives and policies?
  
  
• How have these tools been used in the decision-making process? That is, what questions are being asked and answered through these tools?
  
  
• What are the opportunities to improve these tools for local energy advocates and decision-makers?

The workshop included 3 presentations on different community energy planning and policy analytical tools:

• Morgan Bragelwicz (Simon Fraser University) - Energy economy decision support tools –This presentation shared a recent case study from Vancouver which demonstrated the use of analytical tools to estimate the effects of energy policy at the municipal scale.
  Morgan’s presentation is available here.
  
  
• Dr Kirby Calvert (University of Guelph) - Geo-spatial analysis of renewable energy potentials - Energy mapping typically focuses on the demand side. This presentation explored the use of GIS tools to evaluate energy supply potentials at the landscape scale.
  Dr. Calvert’s presentation is available here.
  
  
• Michael Lee (QUEST Canada) - Cost-benefit analysis tools - This presentation shared a tool developed by the City of London (Ontario) for evaluating community energy investment opportunities.
  Michael’s presentation is available here.

A video of these presentations is available here:

A summary report of feedback received from municipal energy practitioners through these workshops is available here. While a post-meeting survey is available here.