Bruno Merven

Expert elicitation of autocorrelated time series with application to e3 (energy-environment-economic) forecasting models

Explicitly representing uncertainty is recognised as a fundamental requirement of any long-term forecast. We propose and illustrate an expert elicitation protocol for constructing long-term probabilistic projections. Each projection represents a possible realization of a time series with autocorrelation properties, and thus a plausible future evolution of a quantity of interest. We illustrate the approach using two quantities - GDP growth rates and coal prices - that were elicited as part of a project producing baseline forecasts of greenhouse gas emissions in South Africa to 2050. The elicited projections can be used as inputs to deterministic structural models of the energy, economic, and environmental sectors (e3 or energy-environment-economic models), to generate similar probabilistic projections for any desired outputs of the e3 model. An R package for the generation and visualization of these probabilistic projections is provided. Projections are time series that describe how a variable might evolve over time.We describe an expert elicitation protocol for assessing uncertainty around projections.The resulting probabilistic projections can be passed to e3 models to produce probabilistic projections of model outputs.The protocol is illustrated with two real-world case studies.An R package projections for assisting with the elicitation protocol is provided.

Economic analysis of clean energy options for Kuwait

Purpose – An economic assessment was performed of the potential for clean energy options to contribute to the power and desalination needs in the State of Kuwait over the next 20 to 40 years. The paper aims to summarize two analyses that were performed for the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research to develop a strategy promoting renewable energy and evaluating alternative technologies including nuclear energy.Design/methodology/approach – The analyses were performed using a power and water model for Kuwait that was constructed using the International Energy Agency – Energy Technology Systems Analysis Programme (IEA‐ETSAP) TIMES modeling framework. Data provided by the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) and the Kuwait Petroleum Company (KPC) characterizes the projected demand for power and water; the existing and planned power generation and water desalination plants, including the expected retirement of existing plants; and future fossil fuel prices and availability. New power generation options –...

The Importance of the Water-Energy Nexus for Emerging Countries When Moving Towards Below 2 °C

The Thirsty Energy initiative of the World Bank assists countries to address water and energy planning challenges in an integrated manner. The first two Case Studies for South Africa and China have been completed. The approach to developing “water-smart” energy planning models was different in the two Case Studies, with key findings and important insights arising from each. The most fundamental conclusion from both studies is that policies being pursued to mitigate climate change impacts reduce both CO2 emissions and water needs by the energy sector—with only modest increase in energy system cost, and that including the supply and cost of water has a dramatic effect on the upstream technology choices. For example, government mandated policies forcing dry cooling for new coal-fired power plants was reaffirmed as wise and appropriate, though at odds with achieving Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) which quickly disincentivizes the use of coal while promoting renewables and nuclear, as a major step towards achieving below 2 °C emission reductions. Thirsty Energy also examined the influence of climate change on energy and water planning, where results for the two Case Studies proved to be very different, as water availability in China’s northern Energy Bases may actually increase slightly, while in South Africa the water system is stressed forcing more dramatic changes in the energy sector.

Auto camera calibration method for person tracking applications

Jones [1] recently presented a novel calibration procedure that uses a linearized model of the projection of the height of a person to recover the image-plane to local-ground- plane transformation with minimum expert intervention. In this paper we present an addition to the work of Jones [1], by further reducing the measurements needed to be made manually to de ne the image-plane to ground-plane homography. We also do an analysis of the sensitivity of the recovered transformation to errors in measurements and noise, and point out how to use the method to achieve best calibration results.