San Diego Gas & Electric Company – John Ragsdale – 2025
Summary
Logan Ragsdale developed a scope three emissions reporting model and an interactive emissions tool to enhance SDG&E’s ongoing efforts to meet California’s upcoming reporting requirements and evaluate long-term decarbonization strategies.
Goals
The goal of Logan’s fellowship was twofold. First, he developed a framework and built a model to report scope three emissions company-wide in a consistent manner that can assist SDG&E in meeting California’s new scope three reporting requirement taking effect in 2027. Second, he added interactive components to the model to demonstrate the possible impacts that various potential policy, demand, and technical drivers may have on SDG&E emissions trends projected out to 2040. Combined, this model will provide SDG&E an enhanced approach to record and update scope three emissions easily and use the model’s interactive components to provide information on the potential impact of policy and demand decisions on future emissions trends.
Solutions
To develop a repeatable scope three emissions model for SDG&E, Logan:
Sourced data necessary to record scope three emissions and provided a list of data providers and POCs to the team responsible for updating the model.
Built a company-wide scope three emissions model covering purchased goods and services, capital goods, fuel and energy-related activities, and use of sold products that can easily be updated year-to-year.
Designed the model to standardize data inputs to automatically produce output tables and visuals depicting SDG&E’s total emission profile.
To design an interactive model to inform longer-term emissions strategy, Logan:
Analyzed various energy demand forecasts and conducted trend analyses of data from prior years to further develop potential demand and emissions trajectories to 2040.
Implemented various customizable inputs using toggle menus to test the potential impact of regulatory, technical, and demand drivers on emissions trajectories.
Added features to synchronize toggle settings across worksheets and provided clear instructions for annual updates, enabling high-level evaluation of potential impacts on emissions trends from various drivers.
Potential Impact
Logan’s models will assist SDG&E in complying with California’s upcoming scope three reporting requirements and enhance existing efforts to incorporate emissions forecasting into long-term planning. The scope three model streamlines annual updates and provides a consistent framework for scope three categories one, two, three, and eleven emissions. The interactive forecasting tool allows decision makers to explore how different policy, technical, and demand drivers may affect future emissions trends. Together, these tools will support informed strategy development, enhance collaboration across SDG&E teams, and advance SDG&E’s decarbonization goals.
