Energy Modelling and Policy Experts Wanted!
We are thrilled to invite you to participate in the 2025 Energy Modelling Hub Annual Forum, which will be held on December 11–12, 2025, at Carleton University in Ottawa.
The theme of this year’s event is “Navigating uncertainties, Powering a stronger Canada.” In an era marked by geopolitical, economic, and technological uncertainties, there is strong political will to invest in projects of national interest—large infrastructure and development initiatives essential to Canada’s prosperity, resilience, and clean growth objectives. This year’s Forum will highlight how energy-economy modelling can support these ambitions by providing the evidence needed to evaluate options, anticipate risks, and guide decisions toward a stronger future.
We are seeking poster and verbal presentations that highlight methods, results, challenges, and innovative approaches in energy system modelling and policy analysis. Submissions may include new modelling results, methodological advances, case studies, or reflections on barriers and lessons learned.
Based on EMH activities and stakeholder feedback this year, the Forum will focus on the following modelling priorities:
- Uncertainty, shocks, and feedbacks – capture deep uncertainty, compounding risks, and demand shocks to stress-test transition pathways.
- Trade, supply chains, and competitiveness – represent supply chain bottlenecks, procurement constraints, and alternative trade/friend-shoring scenarios.
- Institutional and regional diversity – address permitting barriers, interprovincial asymmetries, and provincial electricity market differences.
- Transmission and distribution system planning – model inter-regional transmission, cost allocation (CBCA), and local-level DER integration.
- Resilience and reliability – incorporate metrics for system stress, redundancy, and provincial/regional reliability assessments.
- Macroeconomic and strategic impacts – link transition pathways to GDP, jobs, labour markets, rates, regional development, equity, and competitiveness.
- Communication and translation of modelling results into actionable insights for policymakers and stakeholders.
- Shared assumptions and policy alignment – develop interoperable models, transparent assumption databases, and reflect national priorities such as Bill C-5 and Projects of National Interest (PNIs).
Call for Communications – Guidelines
We warmly invite you to contribute to this event by submitting your oral or poster presentation idea using this form.
Note: There will be a poster competition, so please encourage your students and colleagues to submit their applications!
Topics of Interest
(We encourage submissions on the following topics but are open to other ideas as well!)
Forum Themes & Panels
Session 1 – Net Zero Meets Trade Disruption: Canada’s Economic and Energy Futures
Focus: How trade shocks, supply chain fragility, and competitiveness pressures affect Canada’s pathways to net zero, and how models can generate actionable insights under uncertainty. This session will also highlight that Canada’s international competitiveness depends on low-emission, electrified technologies and that capturing these transformations requires richer and more sophisticated models.
Potential topics: dynamic system modelling; friendshoring and trade realignment scenarios; supply chain stress and institutional frictions; demand shocks and behavioural variability; resilience to cascading risks; political and social drivers of transition; modelling competitiveness under accelerated electrification, communication and translation of modelling results into actionable insights for policymakers and stakeholders.
Session 2 – Macroeconomic Modelling for Canada’s Transition
Focus: Advancing models that capture economy-wide impacts of the transition, including GDP, labour markets, regional outcomes, and competitiveness, with an emphasis on uncertainty and multiple plausible futures.
Potential topics: macroeconomic modelling of transition pathways; labour market and equity impacts; regional competitiveness; probabilistic shocks vs. gradual transitions; modular frameworks linking macro and energy-economy models, use of IAMs and hybrid frameworks linking energy, economy, and climate systems.
Session 3 – Modelling the Projects of National Interest (PNI): Part 1 – Electricity Modelling & Operationalizing Electrification
Focus: Showcase comparative results from the Multi-Model Comparison Forum (MMCF) WG1 on transmission planning and electrification, while also inviting complementary perspectives on how to operationalize the electrification of Canada. This includes modelling deployment bottlenecks, integration challenges, and system reliability as electrification scales.
Potential topics: interregional transmission planning; operationalizing electrification pathways; AI data centres and associated challenges; bottlenecks in permitting, siting, and supply chains; procurement and investment recovery models; grid reliability and resilience under electrification stress; aligning national models with provincial and sectoral priorities.
Session 4 – Modelling the PNI: Part 2 – Energy-Economy Modelling for Industrial Decarbonization
Focus: Present MMCF WG2 insights on industrial decarbonization projects (mines, CCS, nuclear refurbishment) and invite additional approaches that assess competitiveness, economic impacts, and institutional constraints.
Potential topics: energy-economy pathways for heavy industry; industrial competitiveness under trade disruption; CCS deployment modelling; supply chain impacts of industrial megaprojects; case studies complementing MMCF results.
Session 5 – Enhancing Provincial Resilience: Reliability and Regional Planning in Focus
Focus: How provinces and utilities can leverage independent modelling to strengthen reliability, resilience, and accountability in system planning, including inter-regional transmission and CBCA.
Potential topics: provincial case studies; resilience and reliability metrics; CBCA frameworks; modelling regional asymmetries; integrating social, regulatory, and institutional frictions.
Session 6 – Distribution System Modelling & Local Energy Futures
Focus: Advancing distribution system and local-scale modelling to integrate DERs, reflect municipal priorities, and align with provincial and federal frameworks.
Potential topics: DER integration (solar, storage, EVs); municipal energy planning tools; local resilience under shocks; community participation and social acceptance; interoperability with provincial planning.
Session 7 – Why Canada Needs National Energy System Planning
Focus: Canada lacks a national grid planning framework to coordinate across provinces and regions. This session will explore how interoperable models, shared assumptions, and transparent scenario-based planning could evolve into a coordinated national framework for system planning. Lessons from international practice (e.g., Australia’s ISP, Europe’s TYNDP) will be used to spark discussion.
Potential topics: Scenario-based national planning approaches, coordination mechanisms across provinces and regions, cross-border transmission opportunities and cost-benefit analysis (CBCA), interoperable models and transparent assumption databases, stakeholder co-design and regulatory oversight to ensure legitimacy and investment certainty