Tool for rapid assessment of city energy (TRACE 2.0)

The Tool for Rapid Assessment of City Energy (TRACE) was first developed in 2008 by ESMAP’s Energy Efficient Cities Program to help cities expand their municipal services through energy efficiency. It was designed to give city authorities a quick and easy way to assess their energy use and to identify cost-effective and feasible measures they can take to improve energy efficiency in a variety of public sectors including lighting, water and wastewater, buildings, transportation, solid waste, and power and heating.

It guides users through the process of data collection and sector prioritization —considering key constraints such as technical capacity and finance— to generate specific and integrated recommendations cities can use to improve and expand their energy efficiency efforts. TRACE's benchmarking function allows a city to compare its energy use against a range of peer cities and show the potential energy efficiency improvement the city may realize if it were to match the average of better-performing cities.