Energy planning with LEAP

The history of LEAP

 LEAP, the Long range Energy Alternatives Planning System, is a software tool for energy policy analysis and climate change mitigation assessment.

LEAP was originally created in 1980 for the Beijer Institute's Kenya Fuelwood Project, to provide a flexible tool for long-range integrated energy planning. The early 1990s saw a broadening of LEAP's user-base. In 1991, the first major LEAP-based study in an OECD country was conducted by Tellus Institute entitlesd "America's Energy Choices: an analysis of the potential for energy efficiency and renewables in the USA". In 1992, the first global energy study using LEAP was published by SEI, "Towards a Fossil Free Energy Future" (a report to Greenpeace). Meanwhile, studies continued throughout the developing world, including a World Bank sponsored project to integrate LEAP with an emission dispersion model for studying air quality in Beijing.

The spread of the Internet in the mid-1990s allowed for much wider dissemination of LEAP. By the late 1990s, a new Windows-based version of LEAP was created, allowing the original goal of a highly user-friendly energy and environment planning tool to be more fully realized. The first version of the new tool was made public in early 2001.

By 2003, with the number of LEAP users approaching 500 with most in the developing world, a new project was launched to upgrade the support provided to these users and to foster a community among Southern energy analysts working on sustainability issues. A new web-based community called COMMEND (http://www.energycommunity.org) was created, with the number of LEAP users growing to over 1500 in more than 130 countries by early 2006 and reaching over 3000 in 160 countries by late 2007.

LEAP is an integrated modeling tool that can be used to track energy consumption, production and resource extraction in all sectors of an economy. It can be used to account for both energy sector and non-energy sector greenhouse gas (GHG) emission sources and sinks. In addition to tracking GHGs, LEAP can also be used to analyze emissions of local and regional air pollutants, making it well-suited to studies of the climate co-benefits of local air pollution reduction.

Energy planning with LEAP 

LEAP is fast becoming the de facto standard for countries undertaking integrated resource planning and greenhouse gas mitigation assessments, especially in the developing world. With the issue of climate change rising on the international agenda, LEAP also serves as a powerful tool for Greenhouse Gas (GHG) mitigation assessments. Many countries use LEAP for their national communications to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate change (UNFCCC). LEAP has now been adopted by hundreds of organizations in more than 150 countries worldwide. Its users include government agencies, academics, non-governmental organizations, consulting companies, and energy utilities. It has been used at many different scales ranging from cities and states to national, regional and global applications.

(Source : Leonardo energy )