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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Scout Benchmark Scenarios for U.S. Building Energy and CO2 Emissions to 2050

Dataset ·

Overview and Intended Use Cases: These scenarios establish a range of futures for U.S. buildings sector energy use and CO2 emissions to 2050 using Scout (scout.energy.gov), a reproducible and granular model of U.S. building energy use, emissions, and consumer costs developed by the U.S. national labs for the U.S. Department of Energy's Building Technologies Office (BTO). Scout benchmark scenario data are suitable for the following example use cases: setting high-level policy goals for the U.S. buildings sector to 2050 (e.g., X% building CO2 emissions reductions vs. 2005 levels by 2030, Y% reductions vs. 2005 levels by 2050); exploring the effects of key dynamics driving U.S. buildings sector energy and CO2 emissions to 2050 that could be affected by policy levers (e.g., raising minimum technology performance levels; accelerating electrification and/or retrofit rates; introducing breakthrough technologies to the market); determining priority segments (regions, building types, and end use/technology types) and sequencing of U.S. buildings sector energy and CO2 emissions reductions to 2050 under a given set of assumptions; and/or identifying the energy and emissions impacts or cost effectiveness of specific technologies or operational approaches of interest—in isolation or after considering competition with other measures in a scenario portfolio. Scenario Summary: A total of 8 scenarios explore the effects of changes across both the demand- and supply-side of building energy use on annual U.S. building energy use and CO2 emissions from 2022–2050. Scenarios are organized into three groups representing low, moderate, and best-case potentials for building decarbonization, respectively.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Building Technologies Office
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1872532
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (4)

US building energy efficiency and flexibility as an electric grid resource journal August 2021
U.S. building energy efficiency and flexibility as an electric grid resource (Data and Code) dataset January 2021
Assessing the Potential to Reduce U.S. Building CO2 Emissions 80% by 2050 journal October 2019
Scout Benchmark Scenarios for U.S. Building Energy and CO2 Emissions to 2050 dataset January 2022