Code: Decarbonization Employment and Energy Systems (DEERS) Model

The Decarbonization Employment and Energy Systems (DEERS) model is a data-driven framework for estimating labor market pathways of large-scale, low-carbon energy-supply infrastructure development. The DEERS model is designed as a tool to inform regional and national workforce and infrastructure planning and policy-making in the U.S. The model simulates the distribution of labor effects over time and across economic sectors, resource sectors, occupations, and geography for multi-decadal energy-supply system transition scenarios. The model is used to estimate employment demand and wages, as well as experience, education, and training requirements, across domestic energy supply chains. We also incorporate time-variant factors, such as labor productivity and wage inflation, which are especially important in the context of emerging labor markets and long-term transitions. The DEERS model is adaptable to different energy system contexts and readily coupled with regional and downscaled macro-energy system modeling outputs. It can also be used to explore modifiable workforce and infrastructure planning and policy decisions, such as high road labor policies, siting domestic manufacturing facilities, creating just transition funds, and changing fossil fuel exports over time.