Environmental Economics

NewERA Model

NERA's proprietary N_ewERA model allows us to provide invaluable help to companies managing unprecedented change and uncertainty in the energy sectors related to factors such as technology improvement and environmental regulation.
 
The N_ewERA model is a unique tool for effectively measuring the macroeconomic and detailed sectoral impacts of changes affecting the energy sectors. Its macroeconomic outputs include forecasts of prices of energy commodities, demand and supply of all goods and services, changes in imports and exports, gross domestic product, gross regional product, consumption, investment, disposable income, and changes in employment statistics. Detailed electric sector outputs include new builds, retrofits and dispatch decisions for generating units.

Applying the expertise of leading economic modelers and the extensive energy industry experience of NERA Economic Consulting, the model allows for: 

• Full evaluation of how new and potential future policy, technology, and other changes will interact with each other and influence the key market drivers for the energy sectors;
• Assessment of the economic consequences these changes may have on the non-energy sectors of the economy, for which energy usage and costs are important factors;
• A complete understanding of the economic impacts of different policies and regulations on all sectors of the economy, through a unique combination of a macroeconomic model incorporating all sectors of the economy (except for the electric sector) with a detailed electric sector model; and
• The global form of the N_ewERA model accounts for changes in terms of trade of world regions and spillover effects of one region's policy on other regions.
• The N_ewERA model's integrated approach gives NERA's experts the capability to evaluate the full economic impacts of a range of current and proposed market-based and command-and-control policies, such as:
• Renewable portfolio standards (local, regional, national, or supranational);
• Clean energy standards;
• Transportation fuel policies (e.g., renewable fuel standards, low carbon fuel standards, automobile fuel efficiency);
• Emission taxes;
• Emission cap-and-trade policies;
• Efficiency standards in electric and non-electric sectors (e.g., heat rate standards for units, emissions intensity standards for refineries);
• Mandated construction of new builds or retrofits (or requirements to retrofit or retire); and
• Financial incentives (for renewables or electric vehicles, for example).