Martha Hoffmann

In her doc­toral stud­ies in Ger­many, Martha is work­ing on the real­iza­tion of a socially just and accepted energy tran­si­tion. For this, she plans to add social and eco­log­i­cal aspects to the cur­rent tech­ni­cal and eco­nom­i­cal focus within energy tran­si­tion plan­ning processes. The devel­op­ment of an inte­grated energy sys­tem model will assess the impact of energy mar­ket reforms on com­mu­nity and house­hold level as well as their impli­ca­tions for dis­trib­u­tive jus­tice. Her inter­ests, broadly, encom­pass, energy jus­tice, the energy tran­si­tion, energy mod­el­ing, and Open Source meth­ods and strategies.

Her work is super­vised by Prof. Dr. Pao-​​Yu Oei from the Depart­ment of Energy and Envi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment at Europa-​​Universität Flens­burg (EUF).

Martha wrote her mas­ters degree the­sis  at the TU Berlin in the research group Off-​​Grid Sys­tems at the Reiner Lemoine Insti­tut and devel­oped the sim­u­la­tion tool Off­grid­ders, which sizes elec­tri­fi­ca­tion options. Fol­low­ing  this, from 2019 to 2021, she worked as a researcher at the Reiner Lemoine Insti­tut and was respon­si­ble for the project man­age­ment within the scope of the H2020 research project E-​​LAND, in which RLI devel­ops and applies a sim­u­la­tion tool for sec­tor cou­pled energy sys­tems (Multi-​​Vector Sim­u­la­tor).

Martha’s fel­low­ship is financed through the C-​​BEAR+ project (link: https://reiner-lemoine–insti​tut​.de/​e​n​/​c​-​b​e​ar/) , funded by the Fed­eral Min­istry for Eco­nomic Affairs and Cli­mate Action of Germany.

She will be a vis­it­ing scholar at RAEL for Spring 2023

Con­tact: martha.​hoffmann@​rl-​stiftung.​de

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.