Impact Assessment Tools

The USAID-NREL Partnership delivers detailed analyses with impact assessment tools that empower stakeholders to identify potential social and economic benefits and challenges associated with clean energy policies and actions.

The transition to clean energy is crucial for sustainable development, impacting more than just the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Impact analyses are essential in understanding how these shifts affect economic structures, public health, social equity, and community resilience to climate change. These analyses help stakeholders identify the social and economic benefits and challenges of clean energy policies, enabling informed decision-making that prioritizes human well-being, environmental sustainability, and economic growth.

They also emphasize the importance of targeted data collection and integrating socio-economic datasets with energy sector data to reveal the multifaceted impacts of clean energy transitions. By understanding these dynamics, decision-makers can ensure just and inclusive transitions while building public support.

Key impact analysis areas related to tools and programs delivered through the USAID-NREL Partnership are highlighted in the graphic and table below.

Jobs

Human Health

Energy Access

Gender Equity

Resilience

Category	Category Description	Tool/Program	Tool/Program Description
Air Quality and Human Health	Clean energy transitions can significantly improve air quality by reducing pollutants from fossil fuel combustion, thereby decreasing health risks and enhancing the quality of life for millions globally.	Global Intervention Model for Air Pollution InMAP	Global InMAP is an innovative global air quality model to evaluate the health and environmental impacts of renewable electricity deployment, aimed at informing public health strategies and policy development. Read more about the benefits of air quality improvements.
Emissions	Transitioning to clean energy sources is essential for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO₂ from the power sector, to mitigate climate change and meet international clean energy targets.	The National Residential Efficiency Measures Database (REACT)	A decision support tool that leverages a suit of robust open-source tools from NREL and other partners to help users evaluate and compare different potential pathways for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions associated with their operations.
Emissions	Transitioning to clean energy sources is essential for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO₂ from the power sector, to mitigate climate change and meet international clean energy targets.	Clean Energy Emission Reduction (CLEER)	The CLEER Tool is a user-friendly calculator based on internationally accepted methodologies, enabling users to calculate emissions reduced or avoided from clean energy activities.
Energy Access	Ensuring access to modern, sustainable energy is pivotal for advancing social and economic development, enhancing the provision of essential services and opportunities for productive activities.	Renewable Energy (RE) Data Explorer and the System Advisor Model (SAM)	As indicated on YouTube, RE Data Explorer provides renewable energy data, analytical tools, and technical assistance to developers, policymakers, and decision makers in developing countries, enabling meaningful decisions that support low-emission development and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. SAM, a free desktop application for techno-economic analysis, complements RE Data Explorer by allowing project managers, engineers, policy analysts, and researchers to evaluate the technical, economic, and financial feasibility of renewable energy projects. Together, these tools facilitate system siting and project development.
Energy Access	Ensuring access to modern, sustainable energy is pivotal for advancing social and economic development, enhancing the provision of essential services and opportunities for productive activities.	PVWatts	PVWatts estimates the energy production of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) energy systems throughout the world. It allows homeowners, small building owners, installers, and manufacturers to easily develop estimates of the performance of potential PV installations.
Gender Equity	Applying a gender lens to clean energy policies ensures that transitions do not exacerbate existing inequalities but instead offer opportunities to address gender disparities in energy access, employment, and decision-making.	USAID-NREL's Gender Action Plan	This Action Plan for Gender Integration was developed to address mainstreaming gender across USAID-NREL led activities. While the processes and intervention points mentioned are specific to the USAID-NREL portfolio of work they may also be applicable to other USAID Implementing Partner programs and more generally across clean energy development programming.
Gender Equity	Applying a gender lens to clean energy policies ensures that transitions do not exacerbate existing inequalities but instead offer opportunities to address gender disparities in energy access, employment, and decision-making.	Just and Sustainable Mobility Transition in the Transport Sector: A Conceptual Framework and Gender-Mainstreaming Case Studies	This publication highlights a just and sustainable mobility transition framework for transport practitioners and policymakers, with a focus on gender-mainstreaming considerations.
Jobs	The clean energy transition promises net job creation in the energy sector by replacing fossil fuel-based jobs with new opportunities in renewable energy, albeit with challenges in job reallocation and community impacts.	The International Jobs and Economic Development (I-JEDI) Model	I-JEDI is a free tool for analyzing the economic impacts of renewable energy development around the world. I-JEDI estimates the employment, earnings, gross domestic product, and output from the construction and operation of renewable energy projects across the domestic supply chain. The model results include total economic impacts, as well as impacts by industry (e.g., construction, manufacturing, and banking services). This information helps align renewable energy actions with key economic development goals.
Resilience	Enhancing the resilience of energy systems against climate change impacts is crucial for maintaining reliable energy access and mitigating the risk of disruptions from extreme weather events and cybersecurity threats.	The Resilient Energy Platform (REP)	REP provides expertly curated resources, training materials, data, tools, and direct technical assistance in planning resilient, sustainable, and secure power systems.
Resilience	Enhancing the resilience of energy systems against climate change impacts is crucial for maintaining reliable energy access and mitigating the risk of disruptions from extreme weather events and cybersecurity threats.	REopt	The REopt web tool allows users to evaluate the economic viability of distributed PV, wind, battery storage, combined heat and power (CHP), and thermal energy storage, identify system sizes and dispatch strategies to minimize energy costs, and estimate how long a system can sustain critical load during a grid outage.
Resilience	Enhancing the resilience of energy systems against climate change impacts is crucial for maintaining reliable energy access and mitigating the risk of disruptions from extreme weather events and cybersecurity threats.	Customer Damage Function Calculator	CDF is a resource for facility owners and resilience planners to understand the costs of an electric grid outage at their site. The calculator provides a process to elicit facility outage vulnerabilities and estimates how costs vary with outage duration.
Resilience	Enhancing the resilience of energy systems against climate change impacts is crucial for maintaining reliable energy access and mitigating the risk of disruptions from extreme weather events and cybersecurity threats.	Distributed Energy Resource Cybersecurity Framework (DER-CF)	DER-CF is a no-cost, interactive web tool that holistically evaluates a facility's distributed energy resource cybersecurity posture—or health—and makes customized recommendations.