Laos Energy Modeling and Policy Analysis (LEMPA) Project

Meet the Laos Energy Mod­el­ing and Pol­icy Analy­sis (Under­grad­u­ate!) Team:

The focus of this inter-​​disciplinary and inter-​​university research group is to develop sus­tain­able energy, water, and land-​​use sce­nar­ios for Laos, and to work with local stake-​​holders on the costs and ben­e­fits for com­mu­ni­ties, the nation, and the regional com­merce in energy, water, food, tim­ber and other commodities.

Aadi­tee Kudrimoti

Bio: Aadi­tee is a fourth-​​year at UC Berke­ley study­ing polit­i­cal sci­ence and pub­lic pol­icy with a con­cen­tra­tion in energy, devel­op­ment, and inter­na­tional rela­tions. Aadi­teeis orig­i­nally from Tuc­son, Ari­zona, where she began to develop an inter­est in inter­na­tional envi­ron­men­tal affairs. At UC Berke­ley, Aadi­teeis work­ing on projects in the polit­i­cal econ­omy of Chi­nese devel­op­ment finance, rural elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, and col­lec­tive action. Aadi­tee­has become espe­cially inter­ested in how the rise of renew­able tech­nol­ogy is influ­enc­ing energy diplo­macy around the world. She hopes to pur­sue a career in acad­e­mia and pub­lic pol­icy and work on gov­er­nance tools to build the bar­gain­ing capac­ity of LDCs against MNCs, for­eign state-​​owned enter­prises, etc. on the sub­ject of FDI and other types of invest­ment. She sees SWITCH-​​Laos as hav­ing the poten­tial to serve as a crit­i­cal tool in assist­ing the increase of the Lao people’s bar­gain­ing power over FDI in the energy sec­tor and thus their auton­omy in deter­min­ing their own eco­nomic devel­op­ment. Out­side school, Aaditee’s inter­ests include dance, food jour­nal­ism, and cooking.

Alex Lathem

Bio: Alex Lathem is a third-​​year under­grad­u­ate at Yale Uni­ver­sity. He is a physics major with sev­eral years of expe­ri­ence using pro­gram­ming lan­guages, includ­ing Python SQL, C, and Bash, to ana­lyze sci­en­tific data. Pre­vi­ous research projects Alex has worked on include astrom­e­try of near-​​Earth aster­oids and the cre­ation of a Hub­ble curve through the analy­sis of Type Ia super­novae. Alex spent the sum­mer of 2019 work­ing on the SWITCH model for China, and is very excited to apply the skills he learned there to a ver­sion for Laos. Out­side of research, Alex is also inter­ested in music, video game design, lin­guis­tics, and history.

Ash­ley Yip

Bio: Ash­ley is a second-​​year under­grad­u­ate study­ing envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence with an empha­sis in global pol­i­tics. She moved to New Mex­ico, where she devel­oped an inter­est in envi­ron­men­tal affairs. At UC Berke­ley, she is involved in a pre-​​law asso­ci­a­tion that helped her explore her inter­est in law and how she may inte­grate that into envi­ron­men­tal­ism. Off cam­pus, she is work­ing on a sex edu­ca­tion reform project in Sin­ga­pore with the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion. She is con­stantly explor­ing the inter­sec­tion between pol­icy, edu­ca­tion, and the envi­ron­ment. She hopes to return home to Sin­ga­pore and pur­sue a career in inter­na­tional envi­ron­men­tal pol­icy or law within South­east Asia. Ash­ley chose to work on SWITCH-​​Laos not only because green­ing ASEAN’s eco­nomic devel­op­ment is essen­tial to tack­ling cli­mate change, but also because she is famil­iar with the demo­graphic. She has done research in regards to both urban and rural agri­cul­ture in Asia and the US, and led research for envi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment in busi­ness oper­a­tions. Out­side of school, her inter­ests include climb­ing, hik­ing, piano, and camper vans.

Rachel Ng

Bio: Rachel is a second-​​year Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence and Data Sci­ence major. A Singapore-​​native, Rachel describes that SWITCH-​​Laos extremely impor­tant to her because it is an impor­tant step towards the energy secu­rity of South­east Asia. She believes that the sus­tain­able elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of South­east Asia is key to regional grid sta­bil­ity and energy trade. She is pur­su­ing SWITCH-​​Laos as crit­i­cal in lead­ing the way towards sus­tain­able elec­tri­fi­ca­tion. Rachel is inter­ested in the inter­sec­tion­al­ity between cli­mate change and com­mu­nity, explor­ing how com­mu­nity based issues caused by cli­mate change can be alle­vi­ated through data. Fur­ther­more, Rachel is cur­rently con­cerned about equal access to edu­ca­tion and vol­un­teers weekly as a men­tor to ele­men­tary school stu­dents. In the future, she hopes to return to Sin­ga­pore and guide envi­ron­men­tal change through cre­at­ing an ecosys­tem of sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties and busi­nesses. Her hob­bies include dance, rock climb­ing and water sports.

Ziming Ma

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.”

Jiang, Kelly

As an under­grad­u­ate Kelly was invited to work as a GSR to com­pile data on decen­tral­ized renew­able energy (DRE) in part­ner­ship with Power for All (P4All) as part of a larger effort to research and to build the case for uni­ver­sal elec­tric­ity access by 2025 through dis­trib­uted renew­able energy.  In this project Kelly is work­ing with Dr. Rebekah Shirley and Pro­fes­sor Dan Kam­men of UC Berke­ley Energy and Resources Group.

In the Spring of 2018 Kelly is also a Vis­it­ing Stu­dent and mini-​​grid research stu­dent at the State Key Lab­o­ra­tory of Trans­mis­sion Equip­ment and Sys­tem Secu­rity and New Tech­nol­ogy at Chongqing Uni­ver­sity where she is super­vised by Pro­fes­sor Minyou Chen of the School of Elec­tri­cal Engineering.

Best, Dennis V.

Den­nis has focused his career on tech­nol­ogy and sus­tain­abil­ity pol­icy in emerg­ing and devel­op­ing economies. His research inter­ests include tech­nol­ogy and inno­va­tion pol­icy and impacts to resource and rural devel­op­ment, tech­nol­ogy trans­fer and the polit­i­cal econ­omy of land use man­age­ment. He has led pro­grams with the Paris based Inter­na­tional Energy Agency, as an offi­cial of the OECD, work­ing with emerg­ing economies on energy tech­nol­ogy pol­icy and con­tribut­ing to the Agency’s analy­sis of energy, envi­ron­ment and cli­mate poli­cies (specif­i­cally work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tively with China and other tran­si­tion economies in explor­ing long-​​term clean energy options, includ­ing advanced bioen­ergy, car­bon seques­tra­tion and neg­a­tive emis­sions sys­tems.) Prior to liv­ing in Berke­ley, he spent five years in France, and seven years in Bei­jing, China – advis­ing gov­ern­ment and indus­trial clients on sus­tain­abil­ity and tech­nol­ogy deploy­ment ini­tia­tives. He holds a BA in polit­i­cal sci­ence (inter­na­tional rela­tions) and a con­cen­tra­tion in East Asian stud­ies from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les (UCLA).

Innovation in Energy Storage

Energy stor­age deploy­ment and inno­va­tion for the clean energy transition

Noah Kit­tner^a,b, Felix Lill^b,c and Daniel M. Kam­men*^a,b,d

^a Energy and Resources Group, UC Berke­ley, Berke­ley, CA, USA

^b Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Energy Lab­o­ra­tory, UC Berke­ley, Berke­ley, CA, USA

^c Cen­ter for Dig­i­tal Tech­nol­ogy and Man­age­ment, TU Munich, Munich, Germany

^d Gold­man School of Pub­lic Pol­icy, UC Berke­ley, Berke­ley, CA, USA

Low Carbon Solutions for Sustainable Islands

The Sus­tain­able Islands group at RAEL is involved in under­stand­ing the scope for renew­able energy and energy effi­ciency in the Small Island Devel­op­ing State (SIDS) con­text. We are involved in a num­ber of projects that involve fea­si­bil­ity analy­sis, resource opti­miza­tion and energy sys­tem mod­el­ling. We con­duct assess­ments and build deci­sion sup­port tools for pol­icy mak­ers and indi­vid­u­als — to sup­port the build out of sus­tain­able, low car­bon island economies. Some of our past projects are listed here:

Energy Sec­tor Trends in the Caribbean

Pro­fes­sor Kam­men and grad­u­ate stu­dent Rebekah Shirley recently pub­lished an arti­cle on the his­tory of energy sec­tor devel­op­ment in the Caribbean. The paper also looks at a num­ber of cur­rent renew­able energy projects in the region, per­forms cost ben­e­fit analy­sis and dis­cusses oppor­tu­ni­ties for future renew­able pen­e­tra­tion in the region. Our work is high­lighted in Nature Cli­mate Change.

Shirley, R. and Kam­men, D. (2012). Renew­able energy sec­tor devel­op­ment in the Caribbean: Cur­rent trends and lessons from his­tory. Energy Pol­icy. Vol­ume 57, June 2013, Pages 244–252

Energy Effi­cient Low Income Hous­ing, French Polynesia

The RAEL Sus­tain­able Islands group was invited to col­lab­o­rate with researchers from the UC Berke­ley Gump Sta­tion in Moorea and the Poly­ne­sian Hous­ing Office to con­duct a inte­grated study on the sus­tain­abil­ity of low income hous­ing pro­to­types based on mate­ri­als and ther­mal per­for­mance. Our team con­tributed the car­bon foot­print assess­ment to this study. Check out the final report above.

Car­bon Foot­prints and Green-​​Job Poten­tial in the USVI

Pro­fes­sor Kam­men and grad­u­ate stu­dent Rebekah Shirley were invited to par­tic­i­pate in the NREL Energy Devel­op­ment in Island Nations Ini­tia­tive, launched in St. Thomas, USVI in 2010. Since then they have col­lab­o­rated with NREL and var­i­ous agen­cies in the ter­ri­tory to develop a house­hold car­bon cal­cu­la­tor and green jobs esti­ma­tor used as tools in pub­lic edu­ca­tion and deci­sion mak­ing. Kam­men and Shirley also col­lab­o­rated with NREL and the OAS to pre­pare a sur­vey of the sta­tus of Energy Pol­icy in var­i­ous Caribbean Islands.

Shirley, R., Jones, C. and Kam­men, D. (2012). A house­hold car­bon foot­print cal­cu­la­tor for islands: Case study of the United States Vir­gin Islands. Eco­log­i­cal Eco­nom­ics. Vol­ume 80, August 2012, Pages 8–14

U.S. DOE (2011). Energy Pol­icy and Sec­tor Analy­sis in the Caribbean 2010 — 2011.

Shirley, R. and Kam­men, D. (2012). Esti­mat­ing the Poten­tial Impact of Renew­able Energy on the Caribbean Job Sec­tor. RAEL Report 2012.1.

Green Jobs in Grenada

RAEL col­lab­o­rated with the UN Depart­ment of Eco­nomic and Social Affairs (DESA) on a road map for sus­tain­able eco­nomic growth in Grenada. Pro­fes­sor Kam­men and grad­u­ate stu­dent Rebekah Shirley pre­pared a chap­ter on green job poten­tial while ERG alumni Dan Prull pre­pared a chap­ter on future energy options. The report was pub­lished for the Rio +20 Sum­mit.

UN DESA (2012). Road Map on Build­ing a Green Econ­omy for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment in Car­ri­a­cou and Petite Mar­tinique, Grenada.

Arrechea Alvarado, Marlene Susana

Susana Arrechea holds a bach­e­lors degree in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­sity of San Car­los of Guatemala and a mas­ters degree in Mol­e­c­u­lar Nanoscience and Nan­otech­nol­ogy from the Uni­ver­sity of Castilla-​​La Man­cha. Susana is a Pro­fes­sor at the Engi­neer­ing Fac­ulty at the Uni­ver­sity San Car­los of Guatemala. In 2011, she began a doc­tor­ate pro­gram in Nanoscience and Nan­otech­nol­ogy at the Uni­ver­sity of Castilla-​​La Man­cha in Toledo, Spain. She received a schol­ar­ship through the Car­olina Foun­da­tion, the Uni­ver­sity of Castilla– La Man­cha and the Uni­ver­sity San Car­los of Guatemala. Susana inves­ti­gates novel mate­ri­als for third gen­er­a­tion solar cells at the Insti­tute of Nanoscience, Nan­otech­nol­ogy and Mol­e­c­u­lar Mate­ri­als at the Uni­ver­sity of Castilla – La Man­cha. In 2014, she was selected to par­tic­i­pate in the Renew­able Energy group of Ful­bright Regional Net­work for Applied Research (NEXUS) Pro­gram, led by Dr. Daniel M Kam­men and Dr. Ser­gio Pacca. This pro­gram bring together a net­work of researchers from the United States, Brazil and other West­ern Hemi­sphere nations, for a series of sem­i­nar meet­ings and mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary research. Susana will visit the Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Energy Lab­o­ra­tory (RAEL) at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, to study­ing sus­tain­able iso­lated micro­grids in Latin Amer­ica as part of the Ful­bright NEXUS exchange experience.

He, Gang

Prior to Berke­ley, he was a research asso­ciate with Stan­ford University’s Pro­gram on Energy and Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment from 2008 to 2010.

Deborah Sunter

Before join­ing RAEL in Octo­ber 2015 Dr. Deb­o­rah A. Sunter was a AAAS Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy Pol­icy Fel­low at the Depart­ment of Energy: Advanced Man­u­fac­tur­ing Office.

Her inter­ests include renew­able energy sys­tems, advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­niques, and the inter­ac­tion of sci­ence and pol­icy in acad­e­mia, indus­try and government.