Advancing municipal decarbonization planning through a scenario-based decision support tool

Extended abstract 5-053-26

Promoting carbon neutrality (CN) in the residential and commercial sectors requires local governments to play an important role; however, it is not easy for each municipality to independently grasp the current state of energy consumption or to formulate and evaluate the effects of CN promotion measures. There has been no framework that enables municipal staff, even without specialised knowledge in the energy field, to consistently and simply conduct analyses ranging from understanding current energy consumption to estimating the effects of various CN promotion measures. In our previous study, we therefore proposed the concept of a tool that enables municipalities to easily grasp their current energy consumption and estimate the effects of CN promotion measures.

In this study, based on the above concept, we implemented a web-based software tool that operates in a web browser and outputs slide-format materials for any municipality in Japan. The tool integrates national electricity statistics, census data, and demographic projections with a regional energy demand simulation model. It presents both the current status of CO2 emissions derived from energy use in the selected municipality and projected future CO2 emissions based on various scenarios. The generated slides sequentially explain baseline demand, modelling assumptions, and scenario results.

Using this tool, we estimated the CO2 reduction effects of adopting CN promotion measures in the residential sector for three municipalities in Japan. In the scenario analysis, changes in the number of households up to 2050 were taken into account, and two scenarios were assumed for residential CO2 emissions: a Business-as-Usual (BAU) scenario and a CN promotion scenario involving the active implementation of CN promotion measures. The CN promotion scenario included electrification of heating and hot water supply, expansion of photovoltaic (PV) systems, improvements in insulation performance, and appliance efficiency enhancement. By 2050, CO2 emissions under the CN promotion scenario were approximately 56–75% of those under the BAU scenario. Among the individual measures, electrification and photovoltaic (PV) deployment had particularly large effects, and this tendency was common to all three municipalities.

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