Powering the Blue Economy

The goal of our ‘Pow­er­ing the Blue Econ­o­my’ project is to assess the opti­mal grid inte­gra­tion of off­shore renew­able ener­gy tech­nolo­gies (wave, tidal, wind) and their poten­tial for advanc­ing the blue econ­o­my. Through this project, our team is holis­ti­cal­ly eval­u­at­ing wave ener­gy and wind-wave co-locat­ed ener­gy in terms of the near-term and long-term mar­ket poten­tial and val­ue to the elec­tri­cal grid and blue econ­o­my, as defined by the U.S. Depart­ment of Energy’s Water Pow­er Tech­nolo­gies Office report: Pow­er­ing the Blue Econ­o­my (PBE), and dis­sem­i­nat­ing this infor­ma­tion wide­ly to stream­line device design and deploy­ment strategies.

Katy Zhen, 2025 Amer­i­can Fish­eries Soci­ety Hut­ton Schol­ar and RAEL Vis­it­ing Stu­dent, wrote a blog series doc­u­ment­ing her sum­mer work­ing on this project. You can read her work here.

Katy Zhen

Alexandra Grayson

Alexan­dra (she/​her) is an MS/​PhD in the Ener­gy and Resources Group at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley. Her research lies at the inter­sec­tion of cli­mate pol­i­cy mod­el­ing and crit­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice meth­ods and log­ics. At ERG, she is con­duct­ing research in the Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Ener­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry (RAEL) and the Lib­er­a­to­ry Infra­struc­tures Lab (LiL).

Alexan­dra Grayson earned a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence from Howard Uni­ver­si­ty. A Bal­ti­more native, Alexan­dra can be found advo­cat­ing for a just and sus­tain­able future in her role as a Chesa­peake Bay Foun­da­tion Trustee. She also serves on the Amer­i­can Mete­o­ro­log­i­cal Society’s Ad Hoc Com­mit­tee on Wild­fire Weath­er, Tech­nol­o­gy and Risk.

Spotlight Kampala: Illuminating Energy Inequities in Informal Urban Communities

Spot­light Kam­pala is a mul­ti-insti­tu­tion­al research col­lab­o­ra­tion of uni­ver­si­ties and com­mu­ni­ty advo­cates that aims to shed light on the inequities faced by infor­mal urban com­mu­ni­ties in access­ing and uti­liz­ing elec­tric­i­ty. Our data pro­vides impor­tant base­line sta­tis­tics on met­rics of access like access rates, afford­abil­i­ty, sup­ply reli­a­bil­i­ty and qual­i­ty as well as an under­stand­ing of how com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers per­ceive and nav­i­gate bar­ri­ers to access. We aim not only to pro­vide sum­ma­ry sta­tis­tics, but to ground these learn­ings in the dai­ly lived expe­ri­ence of Kampala’s infor­mal res­i­dents. Com­mu­ni­ty par­tic­i­pa­tion is a core objec­tive of the work, with com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers involved in each step of research design, exe­cu­tion, and dis­sem­i­na­tion. The project also focus­es heav­i­ly on work­ing close­ly with local stake­hold­ers like the Gov­ern­ment of Ugan­da’s Min­istry of Ener­gy and Min­er­al Devel­op­ment, the util­i­ty Umeme Lim­it­ed, and com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tion like ACTo­geth­er Ugan­da and the Nation­al Slum Dwellers Fed­er­a­tion of Uganda.

For more infor­ma­tion and con­tact with the project team, vis­it the Spot­light Kam­pala web­site.

Xi Xi

Xi Xi is a Master’s stu­dent for the Ener­gy Resource group. Xi Xi uses inter­dis­ci­pli­nary meth­ods such as quan­ti­ta­tive mod­el­ing tech­niques and pol­i­cy analy­ses to assess impacts on emis­sions, ener­gy use, and oth­er socio-eco­nom­ic indi­ca­tors. Xi Xi looks for­ward to apply­ing her knowl­edge in the con­text of inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment. Xi Xi would also like to study how devel­op­ing coun­tries may be affect­ed by or ben­e­fit from ten­sions between Chi­na and the West relat­ed to China’s emerg­ing role in inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment and inter­na­tion­al cli­mate politics.

In RAEl she is research­ing US-Chi­na cli­mate pol­i­cy, decar­boniza­tion in Africa, and Chi­na’s role in Africa, among oth­er topics.

Pri­or to join­ing ERG, Xi Xi earned a BA from Welles­ley Col­lege. Xi Xi has worked for the Insti­tute for Glob­al Decar­boniza­tion Progress (iGDP), Abt, and the Mass­a­chu­setts Clean Ener­gy Cen­ter (Mass­CEC).

Xi Xi also enjoys trav­el­ing in their free time.

Ari Ball-Burack

Ari Ball-Burack is a first year PhD stu­dent in the Ener­gy & Resources Group at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, advised by Dr. Dan Kam­men. He stud­ies data and com­pu­ta­tion­al tools to inform effec­tive decar­boniza­tion pol­i­cy. Specif­i­cal­ly, he is inter­est­ed in incor­po­rat­ing key com­plex­i­ties such as jus­tice and equi­ty, behav­ioral­ly real­is­tic deci­sion-mak­ing, and tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion in ener­gy pol­i­cy deci­sion sup­port tools. His cur­rent research inves­ti­gates decar­boniza­tion pol­i­cy inter­ac­tions at the nation­al and glob­al lev­els, dis­tri­b­u­tion­al equi­ty in elec­tric vehi­cle charg­ing infra­struc­ture, and rep­re­sen­ta­tions of con­sumer adop­tion in mul­ti-sec­tor ener­gy sys­tem models.

Ari grad­u­at­ed from Williams Col­lege, where he stud­ied Com­put­er Sci­ence and Physics, and received MPhil degrees in Advanced Com­put­er Sci­ence and Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge. Pri­or to join­ing ERG, he worked as a researcher at the Cam­bridge Insti­tute for Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Lead­er­ship. Ari enjoys run­ning, play­ing music, and qual­i­ty time with loved ones (ide­al­ly in nature).

Anyuat, John Arou

Anyu­at John Arou, is a lec­tur­er of Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Juba in Juba, South Sudan. He is also the CEO of the Renew­able Ener­gy Coun­cil of South Sudan (RECOSS).

His Research focus­es on Pow­er Sys­tems Stud­ies; espe­cial­ly pow­er qual­i­ty Con­trol in vari­able renew­able resources (VRE) – Based Micro­grids. Arou grad­u­at­ed from Nde­j­je Uni­ver­si­ty, Kam­pala, Ugan­da, and received the Mas­ter of Sci­ence in Elec­tri­cal Pow­er from New­cas­tle Uni­ver­si­ty, New­cas­tle Upon Tyne, UK and cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing Doc­tor of Engi­neer­ing in Elec­tri­cal & Com­put­er Engi­neer­ing from the Yoko­hama Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty, Yoko­hama, Japan.

Con­tact: anyuat2000@​gmail.​com

Qin, Guangyu

Guangyu joins us for a year from North Chi­na Elec­tric Pow­er Uni­ver­si­ty, where he has already worked on clean ener­gy mar­kets and wind ener­gy forecasting.

At RAEL (and LBL) he will be work­ing on aggres­sive decar­boniza­tion path­ways for Chi­na, and the expan­sion of clean ener­gy ser­vices in heavy industry.

His recent paper on day-ahead wind fore­cast­ing is avail­able on the RAEL pub­li­ca­tions pages.  To take a look, click here.

Send him note and wel­come & get to know Guangyu!

Raghavan, Shuba

Shu­ba is the co-direc­tor of the Cal­i­for­nia Ener­gy Com­mis­sion spon­sored project

” Engag­ing Com­mu­ni­ties in the Design of  Sus­tain­able Ener­gy and Local­ized Futures  (SELF)”

Among her many pub­li­ca­tions are a num­ber that address­es the ener­gy-access-afford­abil­i­ty-cli­mate nexus, including:

1. The Cal­i­for­nia Demand Response: Poten­tial Study, Phase 3; Bri­an F.Gerke,Giulia Gallo,Sarah J. Smith, Jingjing Liu, Peter Alstone, Shu­ba V. Ragha­van, Peter Schwartz, Mary Ann Piette, Rongx­in Yin and Sofia Stensson. 
2. Trans­lat­ing cli­mate change and heat­ing sys­tem elec­tri­fi­ca­tion impacts on build­ing ener­gy use to future green­house gas emis­sions and elec­tric grid capac­i­ty require­ments in Cal­i­for­nia; Bri­an Tar­ro­ja, Feli­cia Chi­ang, Amir AghaK­ouchak, Scott Samuelsen, Shu­ba V. Ragha­van, Max Wei, Kaiyu Sunand Tianzhen Hong, Applied Ener­gy, 2018, vol. 225, issue C, 522–534
3. Build­ing a Health­i­er and More Robust Future: 2050 Low-Car­bon Ener­gy Sce­nar­ios for Cal­i­for­nia. Cal­i­for­nia Ener­gy Com­mis­sion. Pri­ma­ry Authors: Max Wei, Shu­ba Ragha­van, Patri­cia Hidal­go-Gon­za­lez, Con­tribut­ing Authors: Rodri­go Hen­riquez Auba, Dev Mill­stein, Madi­son Hof­fack­er, Rebec­ca Her­nan­dez, Eleonara Ruffi­ni, Bri­an Tar­ro­ja, Amir Agha Kouchak, Josi­ah John­ston, Daniel Kam­men, Julia Szi­nai, Col­in Shep­ard, Anand Gopal, Kaiyu Sun, Tianzhen Hong, and Florin-Langer James. Pub­li­ca­tion Num­ber: CEC-500‑2019-033; March 2019
4. Path­ways to Decar­bonize Res­i­den­tial Water Heat­ing in Cal­i­for­nia, Shu­ba V Ragha­van, Max Wei, Daniel Kam­men, Ener­gy Pol­i­cy 109 (2017) 441–451
5. Adop­tion of Solar Home Light­ing Sys­tems in India: What might we learn from Kar­nata­ka? Har­ish, Iychet­ti­ra, Ragha­van, Kan­d­likar, Ener­gy Pol­i­cy, Vol 62, Novem­ber 2013, pp ‑697–706.
6. Assess­ing the impact of the tran­si­tion to Light Emit­ting Diodes based solar light­ing sys­tems in India, San­tosh Har­ish, Shu­ba V Ragha­van, Milind Kan­d­likar, Gireesh Shri­mali, Ener­gy for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment, Vol­ume 17, Issue 4, August 2013, pp. 363–370.

A course in Climate Justice

For the UC Berke­ley Cli­mate Jus­tice course, syl­labus, click here.