IEEE VIS 2024 Content: Opportunities and Challenges in the Visualization of Energy Scenarios for Decision-Making

Opportunities and Challenges in the Visualization of Energy Scenarios for Decision-Making

Sam Molnar - National Renewable Energy Lab, Golden, United States

Kenny Gruchalla - National Renewable Energy Lab, Golden, United States

Graham Johnson - National Renewable Energy Lab, Golden, United States

Kristi Potter - National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, United States

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Room: Bayshore VI

2024-10-14T16:00:00ZGMT-0600Change your timezone on the schedule page
2024-10-14T16:00:00Z
Exemplar figure, described by caption below
Two visualizations of renewable site location and capacities for four different energy scenarios. a) Each site has a radar plot where the distance from the center indicates the capacity for the labeled scenario, as shown in the legend. Wind and solar sites are plotted as separate colors (blue and yellow, respectively). b) An aggregated visualization of scenario data where each site is colored according to the number of scenarios it occurs in and the resource type.
Abstract

Scenario studies are a technique for representing a range of possible complex decisions through time, and analyzing the impact of those decisions on future outcomes of interest. It is common to use scenarios as a way to study potential pathways towards future build out and decarbonization of energy systems. The results of these studies are often used by diverse energy system stakeholders — such as community organizations, power system utilities, and policymakers — for decision-making using data visualization. However, the role of visualization in facilitating decision-making with energy scenario data is not well understood. In this work, we review common visualization designs employed in energy scenario studies and discuss the effectiveness of some of these techniques in facilitating different types of analysis with scenario data.