Brookings India’s Energy and Sustainability team has recently completed a 2030 demand and supply model for the electricity sector. This Brown Bag at Brookings India aimed to distill the learnings form this work and further discussions in the research and academic community on the fundamental aspects of data analysis for policy problems.

Rather than be seen as some hard data science, energy systems modelling is a cross-disciplinary enterprise relying on macroeconomics and its micro-foundations, social psychology and political analyses to support the technology and policy choices that are reflected through these models.

Sahil Ali explored these aspects through some stylised case studies from our work where and discussed the relationship between research questions and choice of modelling techniques, good practices in data collection, ‘creation’ and calibration, determinants of robust relationships and the role of feelings in determining modelling outcomes and policy narratives.

Speaker Profile: Mohd. Sahil Ali is an Associate, Energy and Sustainability, Brookings India. He specialises in systems-level modelling and analyses of energy and material flow and its linkages with technology, policy, economy and environment. He has contributed to several energy and emissions scenario modelling exercises at the state and national level, reflecting directly in official policies and action plans. He has also represented the Indian research community on important platforms for SDGs and green growth, and has advised NITI Aayog on its national energy security model. Ali has a Master’s Degree in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and a Bachelor’s in Arts from St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi.