Highly-resolved, Long-term Energy Demand Projections for the Contiguous United States: Data Compiled Using the Demand-side Grid (dsgrid) Toolkit for the Integrated Energy Futures Project

Modeled and compiled datasets describing electricity use by sector, and end use that are geographically specific, hourly, and projected out to 2050 for a single scenario. The current datasets reflect a scenario with a high degree of end-use electrification moderated by high assumed efficiency improvements (the "High Scenario"). The compiled datasets under this scenario are intended to demonstrate the application of a novel modeling pipeline and are not a prediction of future electricity demand.

The modeling pipeline to produce these datasets leverages key EERE tools spanning buildings (ResStock, ComStock, and Scout), industry (Industrial Geospatial Analysis Tool for Energy Evaluation [IGATE-E], Demand Response Futures [DR-Futures], Industrial Energy Data Book), and transportation (Transportation Energy & Mobility Pathway Options [TEMPO] model, EVI-X, and POLARIS). The sectoral data developed by the building, industry, and transportation models are integrated, analyzed, and made publicly available using the demand-side grid (dsgrid) toolkit.

The published datasets are meant to demonstrate the modeling capabilities developed, and should not yet be used for decision-making purposes because:
- Starting energy use data (e.g., for 2024) are not fully validated at high resolution.
- One scenario is insufficient to describe the potential futures of electricity load, given large uncertainties in technology adoption, technology advancement, policy environment, weather, etc.
- Independent (unlinked) sectoral models are used to produce the electricity demand projections and the modeling input assumptions and results are not necessarily consistent across sectors in terms of levels of ambition for the modeled scenario.

Nonetheless, this new capability to produce aligned datasets for multiple sectors and end uses offers, for the first time, comprehensive coverage of the entire electricity demand at an appropriate spatiotemporal resolution needed to plan and analyze 21st-century power systems for the contiguous United States (CONUS). Please see the full report for detailed descriptions of methods, sectoral and cross-sectoral limitations, and results for electricity demand at selected spatial and temporal resolutions using the individual and combined datasets.

Data are developed by teams of National Laboratory researchers from Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) as part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Office's Integrated Energy Futures (IEF) project.