FACETS has been designed to represent each energy sector at the level of detail required to analyze and visualize real policy- and technology-driven change. From electric vehicles to pipeline infrastructure for carbon dioxide capture and storage, from solar panels to pollution control devices on coal-fired power plants, FACETS describes the technology costs, performance, and potential necessary to evaluate these options realistically and simultaneously.

The FACETS power sector starts with the US Energy Information Administration Annual Energy Outlook plant file database of all 15,000 existing units in the country, including their capacity, efficiency, costs, availability, and the fuel types each can use. Emissions rates and emissions control equipment are drawn from the EPA National Electric Energy Data System database. Each plant is tagged with its latitude and longitude, so that unit-level results can visualized. 

New plant options are drawn from Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) input data, except for new wind and solar technologies, which are taken from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) Annual Technology Baseline scenarios. Wind and solar potential, generation profiles, and grid connection costs come from NREL's ReEDS model data. 

Plants are located in 134 regions that represent key transmission system bottlenecks. Both existing inter-regional transmission capacity and investment options for capacity expansion are specified, enabling analysis of the costs and benefits of connecting renewable resources with distant loads.

In the end use sectors, FACETS represents individual equipment - including furnaces, refrigerators, light bulbs, and automobiles - each with different technology types, vintages, and efficiency levels, enabling analysis of detailed energy efficiency and demand side management policies and their impacts on power generation and air emissions. 

All data is derived from high quality, publicly available sources, primarily US DOE, US EPA, and NREL. More information about FACETS data sources is available here.