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!

Joyceline Marealle

Joyce­line is a Tan­zan­ian who holds a bachelor’s degree in chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­sity of Rochester.

Her research inter­est lies in energy decen­tral­iza­tion, diver­si­fi­ca­tion, eco­nom­ics and pol­icy mak­ing to empower women and improve the stan­dard of liv­ing in East Africa.

She cur­rently works at the Renew­able & Appro­pri­ate Energy Lab­o­ra­tory on Off grid sys­tems in remote areas in East Africa.

Prior to her MS, Joyce­line interned at MIT and con­ducted research on alu­minum bat­ter­ies for elec­tric vehi­cles. Addi­tion­ally, since 2017 she has been work­ing to empower mar­gin­al­ized young women of New Hope For Girls Orga­ni­za­tion in Tan­za­nia. Among her recent projects is her team win­ning a $10,000 Davis Project for Peace Fel­low­ship to estab­lish a green­house farm­ing busi­ness to act as a sus­tain­able income gen­er­a­tor for the girls.

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)

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.

Bo Li

Bo is a doc­toral stu­dent in Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing  at Chongqing Uni­ver­sity.  His work is focused on the inte­gra­tion of renew­able energy and of elec­tric vehi­cle fleets into the Chi­nese power grid.

Guangzhi Yin

Guangzhi is a PhD stu­dent in Energy Sys­tems Analy­sis at Tsinghua Uni­ver­sity.  He has bachelor’s degrees in Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing and in Man­age­ment from Tsinghua Uni­ver­sity.  He has been a vis­it­ing stu­dent at the Uni­ver­sity of Bath and at the Israel Insti­tute of Technology.

His work is focused on the role of car­bon pric­ing and renew­able energy deploy­ment in China.

Guangzhi will be a vis­it­ing stu­dent at RAEL from Octo­ber 2019– July 2020.

 Cur­rent posi­tion:

Ph.D stu­dent in Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing, Tsinghua University.

Xiaoli Zhang

Xiaoli is a PhD stu­dent in the School of Envi­ron­men­tal & Nat­ural Resources, Ren­min Uni­ver­sity of China

She has a range of research inter­ests, includ­ing the Low-​​carbon tran­si­tion path­way of China’s power sec­tor, the job cre­ation poten­tial of the new green energy econ­omy, and the role of energy stor­age in decar­boniza­tion in China and Europe.

She will be a vis­it­ing research stu­dent at RAEL from Octo­ber 2019 — August 2020.

Dongran Liu

Don­gran Liu is a doc­toral stu­dent in the School of Eco­nomic and Man­age­ment at North China Elec­tric Power Uni­ver­sity.  She has research inter­ests in energy mar­kets, opti­miza­tion and risk man­age­ment, and dis­trib­uted energy resource planning.

At RAEL she is work­ing on mod­el­ing the future of the Chi­nese elec­tric power sys­tem using SWITCH.  She is part of a part­ner­ship with Euro­pean energy stor­age asso­ci­a­tions to exam­ine the mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties and car­bon ben­e­fits of the instal­la­tion of a range of energy stor­age technologies.

She will be a vis­it­ing stu­dent in RAEL from Octo­ber 2019 — August 2020.

Cur­rent posi­tion:

PhD stu­dent, North China Elec­tric Power University

Natalie Fedorova

Natalie is an Energy Engi­neer­ing (https://engineeringscience.berke​ley​.edu/​e​n​e​rgy–engineering/​) major at UC Berke­ley. Her stud­ies focus on inte­grat­ing power sys­tem analy­sis with data sci­ence, opti­miz­ing resource use and study­ing the out­look of renew­able tech­nol­ogy adop­tion in var­i­ous parts of the world.

In RAEL, Natalie is cur­rently engaged in the SWITCH China project. She works on mod­el­ing grid expan­sion for China, look­ing at how decar­boniza­tion path­ways and elec­tric vehi­cle grid inte­gra­tion will affect the future energy mix. Her top­ics of inter­est include long-​​term power sys­tem plan­ning, appli­ca­tions of inter­na­tional energy pol­icy, pro­ject­ing energy demand, and stor­age tech­nol­ogy adoption.

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.