Sam Miles

Sam Miles is a Ph.D. stu­dent in the Energy and Resources Group, and in the Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Energy Lab at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berkeley.

His research focus is at the inter­sec­tion of the scal­a­bil­ity chal­lenge for elec­tric­ity mini-​​grids and the socio-​​economic char­ac­ter­is­tics of urban­iza­tion in Africa, par­tic­u­larly for the arti­sans and entre­pre­neurs who con­sti­tute the ‘pro­duc­tive’ users of such energy sys­tems. He will engage with these ques­tions as an INFEWS (Inno­va­tions at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Sys­tems) NSF scholar.

Pre­vi­ous to life at ERG, Sam worked as a free­lance writer cov­er­ing tech­nol­ogy in emerg­ing mar­kets, an edu­ca­tor at the African Lead­er­ship Uni­ver­sity in Mau­ri­tius, and as an inter­na­tional devel­op­ment con­sul­tant based in West Africa. He holds an MA in Inter­na­tional Energy from Sci­ences Po — Paris and a BA in Ethics, Pol­i­tics, and Eco­nom­ics from Yale.

Annelise Gill-​​Wiehl

At ERG Annelise has con­tin­ued the study of com­mu­nity energy solu­tions, with both cook­ing and com­mu­nity exten­sion ser­vices focal areas for her ana­lytic and field studies.

Annelise Gill-​​Wiehl stud­ied envi­ron­men­tal engi­neer­ing and inter­na­tional devel­op­ment stud­ies at the Uni­ver­sity of Notre Dame.  There, she worked with the Keough School of Global Affairs’ Asso­ciate Dean for Pol­icy and Prac­tice, Sara Siev­ers, through the Kel­logg Inter­na­tional Schol­ars Pro­gram. They inves­ti­gated how to incor­po­rate the pref­er­en­tial option for the poor into pol­icy. Gill-Wiehl’s own research inves­ti­gates energy infra­struc­ture and the bar­ri­ers to tech­nol­ogy adop­tion. Gill-​​Wiehl and Pro­fes­sor Siev­ers piloted a Com­mu­nity Tech­nol­ogy Pro­gram in Shi­rati, Tan­za­nia through a Kel­logg Research Grant.

While an under­grad­u­ate she interned for the Foun­da­tion of Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment in Masaka, Uganda. Addi­tion­ally, Gill-​​Wiehl con­ducted roughly 200 house­hold energy sur­veys through an Expe­ri­enc­ing the World Fel­low­ship to inves­ti­gate energy infra­struc­ture in Shi­rati. Her research inter­ests are at the inter­sec­tion of engi­neer­ing and pol­icy in the East African con­text. She hopes to pur­sue a PhD to fur­ther inves­ti­gate these issues.

The­sis Title: Pilot of Com­mu­nity Tech­nol­ogy Work­ers in Shi­rati, Tanzania

Gbemisola “Gbemi” Akinsipe

My inter­ests range from the inte­gra­tion of renew­ables into exist­ing grids,the pos­si­bil­ity of indi­genes (espe­cially women) in rural com­mu­ni­ties pro­duc­ing their own power or at least under­stand­ing its work­ings and the inter­ac­tion between sci­ence and pol­icy mak­ing in devel­op­ing coun­tries. I would love to study in the Renew­able & Appro­pri­ate Energy Lab­o­ra­tory (RAEL) or the Energy Mod­el­ing, Analy­sis and Con­trol Group (EMAC)

Yu, Hilary

Hilary received her B.A. in Gov­ern­ment and Bio­log­i­cal Sci­ences, with a con­cen­tra­tion in Ecol­ogy and Evo­lu­tion­ary Biol­ogy in the lat­ter, from Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity, where she grad­u­ated in 2015. At ERG, Hilary is inter­ested in explor­ing the science-​​law nexus and the fac­tors – polit­i­cal, eco­nomic, and social – that inform the trans­la­tion of sci­ence into leg­is­la­tion. Her aca­d­e­mic inter­ests addi­tion­ally include top­ics in sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, cli­mate change edu­ca­tion, restora­tion ecol­ogy, water and energy effi­ciency, and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. Hilary was pre­vi­ously involved in research­ing energy and wildlife issues as an intern with the NRDC’s North­ern Rock­ies office, and in the year before com­ing to ERG, she spent some time pur­su­ing another pas­sion, work­ing in Malawi on a death penalty sen­tence rehear­ing project. Hilary is a Gates Foun­da­tion Mil­len­nium Fellow.

Kuan, John Akol Akol

Akol Kuan is a civil engi­neer­ing major and Maser­Card Foun­da­tion Scholar at UC Berkeley.

In RAEL, Akol is focus­ing on the design and oper­a­tion of clean energy mini-​​grids for refugee com­mu­ni­ties, with a project focused on the UNHCR Kakuma Refugee Camp.  Kakuma is a town in north­west­ern Turkana County, Kenya. It is the site of a UNHCR refugee camp, estab­lished in 1969. The pop­u­la­tion of Kakuma town was over 180,000 in 2016, hav­ing grown from around 8,000 in 1990.

Patel, Serena

Ser­ena is an Energy Engi­neer­ing major at UC Berke­ley, where she is engaged in num­ber of activ­i­ties, including:

Work­ing at the Stu­dent Envi­ron­men­tal Resource Cen­ter under the Zero Waste Research Cen­ter to help food ven­dors achieve zero waste goals, cre­at­ing a cul­ture of zero waste within the stu­dent body through edu­ca­tion, and con­duct­ing research on com­postable plas­tics recycling.

Dur­ing the Spring 2018 semes­ter Ser­ena is lead­ing a group of 9 stu­dents in work­ing with the local non­profit, Grid Alter­na­tives, to install solar pan­els on low income fam­ily homes in Sali­nas, Cal­i­for­nia dur­ing spring break. Her respon­si­bil­i­ties include co-​​facil­i­tat­ing a class about energy access, equity, energy pol­icy, and solar energy tech­nol­ogy in Cal­i­for­nia as well as coor­di­nat­ing hous­ing, fundrais­ing, and trans­porta­tion to the location.

In RAEL Ser­ena is focus­ing on the design, oper­a­tion, power sys­tems opti­miza­tion, and social impacts of the clean energy mini-​​​​grid pow­er­ing the Human Needs Project in Kib­era, Kenya.”

Actualizing the Encyclical Laudato Si

RAEL has part­nered with both the Pon­tif­i­cal Acad­emy of Sci­ences and a num­ber of other groups world­wide that are engag­ing the Vat­i­can and inter­ested part­ners to uti­lize the dia­log around The Encycli­cal to pro­mote equity, sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and cli­mate protection.

Events in this ini­tia­tive include:

RAEL and Vat­i­can pub­li­ca­tions such as:

Novem­ber 2, 2016 roundtable:

Actu­al­iz­ing the Vision of Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Com­mon Home

Kam­men, D. M., Alstone, P. and Ger­shen­son, D. (2014) “Energy for sus­tain­able and equi­table devel­op­ment,” Sus­tain­able Human­ity, Sus­tain­able Nature: Our Respon­si­bil­ity, Pon­tif­i­cal Acad­emy of Sci­ences, Extra Series 41, Vat­i­can City 2014 Pon­tif­i­cal Acad­emy of Social Sci­ences, Acta 20, Vat­i­can City 2014

Videos:

Cli­mate Change, Con­sumerism, and the Pope

Mozersky, Dave

David Moz­er­sky is the Found­ing Direc­tor of the Pro­gram on Con­flict, Cli­mate Change and Green Devel­op­ment. An expert on Sudan and South Sudan, he has been involved in con­flict pre­ven­tion efforts in Africa since 2001, with a spe­cific inter­est in medi­a­tion, nego­ti­a­tion and peace processes. He has worked with the Inter­na­tional Cri­sis Group, the African Union High-​​​​Level Panel on the Sudans, and Human­ity United, among oth­ers. He has writ­ten exten­sively about the con­flicts and peace­mak­ing efforts in the Horn of Africa, and has tes­ti­fied or pre­sented before the U.S. Sen­ate and House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the Cana­dian Par­lia­ment, and South Sudanese Par­lia­ment. David has authored and co-​​​​authored more than two dozen Inter­na­tional Cri­sis Group reports and brief­ing papers, and his writ­ing has appeared in the Har­vard Inter­na­tional Review, Inter­na­tional Herald-​​​​Tribune, Finan­cial Times-​​​​Europe, and other publications.

Dave now directs Energy Peace Part­ners to put many of the ideas devel­oped in this pro­gram in practice.

Strategic siting and regional grid interconnections key to low-​​carbon futures in African countries

Recent fore­casts sug­gest that African coun­tries must triple their cur­rent elec­tric­ity gen­er­a­tion by 2030. Our mul­ti­cri­te­ria assess­ment of wind and solar poten­tial for large regions of Africa shows how eco­nom­i­cally com­pet­i­tive and low-environmental–impact renew­able resources can sig­nif­i­cantly con­tribute to meet­ing this demand. We cre­ated the Mul­ti­cri­te­ria Analy­sis for Plan­ning Renew­able Energy (MapRE) frame­work to map and char­ac­ter­ize solar and wind energy zones in 21 coun­tries in the South­ern African Power Pool (SAPP) and the East­ern Africa Power Pool (EAPP) and find that poten­tial is sev­eral times greater than demand in many coun­tries. Sig­nif­i­cant frac­tions of demand can be quickly served with “no-​​regrets” options—or zones that are low-​​cost, low-​​environmental impact, and highly acces­si­ble. Because no-​​regrets options are spa­tially het­ero­ge­neous, inter­na­tional inter­con­nec­tions are nec­es­sary to help achieve low-​​carbon devel­op­ment for the region as a whole, and inter­con­nec­tions that sup­port the best renew­able options may dif­fer from those planned for hydropower expan­sion. Addi­tion­ally, inter­con­nec­tions and select­ing wind sites to match demand reduce the need for SAPP-​​wide con­ven­tional gen­er­a­tion capac­ity by 9.5% in a high-​​wind sce­nario, result­ing in a 6–20% cost sav­ings, depend­ing on the avoided con­ven­tional tech­nol­ogy. Strate­gic selec­tion of low-​​impact and acces­si­ble zones is more cost effec­tive with inter­con­nec­tions com­pared with solu­tions with­out inter­con­nec­tions. Over­all results are robust to mul­ti­ple load growth sce­nar­ios. Together, results show that mul­ti­cri­te­ria site selec­tion and delib­er­ate plan­ning of inter­con­nec­tions may sig­nif­i­cantly increase the eco­nomic and envi­ron­men­tal com­pet­i­tive­ness of renew­able alter­na­tives rel­a­tive to con­ven­tional generation.

Maushund, Brooke

Brooke’s under­grad­u­ate career was pro­filed in the CNR Newslet­ter.