CESAR (Canada Energy Systems Analysis Research) is an initiative of Dr. David Layzell, a professor at the University of Calgary, to encourage and communicate research and critical analysis around the transformation of Canada’s energy systems.
The primary goals of CESAR are to elevate the conversation across Canada around energy systems choices and to inform policy and investment decisions regarding the transformation of Canada’s energy systems towards sustainability.
This website provides a data visualization portal to provide historical information and future projections on the energy systems of Canada and its provinces. The data for this resource comes largely from the Canadian Energy Systems Simulator (CanESS), a powerful computer Model from whatIf? Technologies Inc. (Ottawa, ON). CESAR has been working with whatIf? to improve, validate and calibrate CanESS as it integrates 30+ years of historical government data with a large database of energy conversion technologies to project the flows of energy, greenhouse gases (GHG), water and dollars for past, present and possible future energy systems.
The website also summarizes some of the projects that have been or are being carried out by researchers that are affiliated with CESAR.
Finally, the website hosts a CESAR Blog, were we post brief reports or insights that have been generated through our research or visualization work on energy systems analysis.