Previous studies have forecasted the future benefits associated with the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) programs. These studies have focused on the impacts of programmatic activities given expected economic and budget situations, and an assumption of complete success. These benefits have invariably been represented as a point estimate, or series of point estimates through time. As the government climate evolves to one with a greater emphasis on portfolio management, it is anticipated that traditional benefits analysis will evolve to a more ex ante decisional activity that will integrate portfolio analysis and program planning with impact analysis and Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) compliance. A consideration of the uncertainty associated with point estimates of program impacts will almost certainly alter the representation and consideration of this portfolio. Further, R&D decision makers need to be able to look at alternative assumptions of future markets and performance of future technologies in order to gain a better understanding of the range of potential impacts of the R&D portfolio. Comparisons with past benefits analyses have illustrated that changes in assumptions such as proposed technology cost, performance, and size of potential market can significantly affect the benefits forecast. This study proposes a new framework for incorporating alternative scenarios into a portfolio tool that provides resulting energy savings estimates given changes from reference-case conditions. The framework can be changed by altering factors such as the R&D budget response functions, alternative macro assumptions (fuel prices, GDP growth, etc.), programmatic interaction scenarios (leveraging efforts, etc), alternative market outlooks (floorspace growth, etc), and alternative program objectives.
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