TED: Technology and Environmental Database

See also: View Bar

Analysts often need ready access to comprehensive and up-to-date data describing energy technologies. Such data are spread across a range of sources, which are not easily accessible, particularly to analysts in the developing countries. To address this problem, LEAP includes a Technology and Environmental Database ( TED ) that provides extensive information describing the technical characteristics, costs and environmental impacts of a wide range of energy technologies including existing technologies, current best practices and next generation devices.

TED's Data Pages include quantitative data on the technology characteristics, costs, and environmental impacts associated with energy technologies. In addition, Information Pages review the availability, appropriateness, cost-effectiveness and key environmental issues for a wide range of energy technologies.

The first version of TED includes data on approximately one thousand technologies, referencing reports by dozens of institutions including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the International Energy Agency, as well as by regional institutions who have developed data specific to energy technologies found in developing countries. TED can be used as a standalone tool or, as an integral part of LEAP, it can be used to calculate the environmental loadings of your energy scenarios. TED's own core database of emission factors can be edited or supplemented by a your own data. We hope that TED will be seen as an open, publicly accessible database, and we encourage you to contribute additional sources of data which you think would be of use to energy and environmental professionals in the developing countries.

Tree

The tree, which always appears on the left of the TED screen is a hierarchical outline used to organize and edit your TED data. The tree contains two types of branches:

Category branches are used mainly for organizing the other branches into hierarchical data structures. They contain no data, but can be associated with an information page. To do this, select the Branch Properties screen and type or browse for the file location (or URL) of the information page (an HTM or HTML file).

Technology branches contain the data on a particular technology.

In most respects the TED tree works just like the ones in standard Windows tools such as the Windows Explorer. You can rename branches by clicking once on them and typing, and you can expand and collapse the outline by clicking on the +/- symbols to the left of each branch icon. Additional options to edit the tree can be accessed in a number of ways: