Long-range Energy Alternative Planning (LEAP)

The Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning system (LEAP) is a scenario-based energy-environment modeling tool. Its scenarios are based on comprehensive accounting of how energy is consumed, converted and produced in a given region or economy under a range of alternative assumptions on population, economic development, technology, price and so on. With its flexible data structures, LEAP allows for analysis as rich in technological specification and end-use detail as the user chooses.

With LEAP, the user can go beyond simple accounting to build sophisticated simulations and data structures. Unlike macroeconomic models, LEAP does not attempt to estimate the impact of energy policies on employment or GDP, although such models can be run in conjunction with LEAP. Similarly, LEAP does not automatically generate optimum or market-equilibrium scenarios, although it can be used to identify least-cost scenarios. Important advantages of LEAP are its flexibility and ease-of-use, which allow decision makers to move rapidly from policy ideas to policy analysis without having to resort to more complex models.

LEAP serves several purposes: as a database, it provides a comprehensive system for maintaining energy information; as a forecasting tool, it enables the user to make projections of energy supply and demand over a long-term planning horizon; as a policy analysis tool, it simulates and assesses the effects - physical, economic, and environmental - of alternative energy programs, investments, and actions.

You can use LEAP to project the energy supply and demand situation in order to glimpse future patterns, identify potential problems, and assess the likely impacts of energy policies. LEAP can assist you to examine a wide variety of projects, programs, technologies and other energy initiatives, and arrive at strategies that best address environmental and energy problems.