The Energy Forecasting Framework and Emissions Consensus Tool (EFFECT) is an Excel-based, inventory-style tool with some built-in optimization that can easily be used by multiple stakeholders. The overarching objective of this tool is to facilitate a transparent sharing of data and assumptions used to model different scenarios, in the understanding that reaching consensus on these, is a necessary first step towards agreeing on the future actions that need to be taken, based on the outcomes of the analysis.
The model consists of 5 main modules (power generation, transport, household electricity consumption, nonresidential, and industry). The transport module includes on-road, rail, inland waterways, coastal shipping and national air.
EFFECT had been successfully used in many different national and sub-national low carbon development studies. It is designed for the evaluation and comparison of different development scenarios in which the modeling focuses on specific areas where substantial mitigation impacts can be achieved. Thus bottom-up modeling is usually not used to model the whole economy, but to evaluate the benefits of specific policy and/or investment implementation by comparing two or more scenarios:
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A “Reference Scenario” that portrays what is likely to happen under a normal development process in which no particular emphasis is placed on the climate change impacts of that development.
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A “Low Carbon Scenario” that looks at ways to achieve the same or better development progress than in the “Reference Scenario” but with a lower impact on GHG emissions to the atmosphere.
The differences between these scenarios allow the evaluation of the mitigation opportunities, their associated co-benefits, barriers to adoption, and the cost of achieving them.
This model has been adopted and deployed internationally in multiple national and sub-national studies such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Poland, Nigeria, Vietnam, North Macedonia, and Ethiopia.
It has been adopted by the Ministry of Transport in Vietnam as their official program for NDC analysis using a multi-lingual version of EFFECT (English, German and Vietnamese)