Archive of Topic: Islands

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.

Shirley, Rebekah

Rebekah Shirley is ERG alum­ni and for­mer Post-Doc­tor­al Researcher at RAEL. She com­plet­ed her doc­tor­al stud­ies in the Ener­gy and Resources Group in 2015. She also pre­vi­ous­ly obtained a MSc. Ener­gy and Resources (2011) and a MSc. Civ­il Engi­neer­ing at UC Berke­ley (2011). Her doc­tor­al research focused on decen­tral­ized renew­able ener­gy tech­nolo­gies and design­ing inte­grat­ed mod­el­ing frame­works to sup­port ener­gy plan­ning in emerg­ing economies, with a focus on South­east Asia and island regions and now her scope has extend­ed to sub-Saha­ran Africa, where she lives.

As a researcher at RAEL Rebekah has con­duct­ed fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies for ener­gy alter­na­tives in Bor­neo and Laos, built the first car­bon emis­sions and green jobs impact cal­cu­la­tors in the Caribbean, devel­oped solu­tions to reduce the car­bon and water foot­prints of the hotel sec­tor in India, designed car­bon neu­tral emer­gency hous­ing for hur­ri­cane pre­pared­ness and cli­mate resilience in French Poly­ne­sia, explored the agri­cul­ture-water inter­sec­tion with Ful­bright Nexus Schol­ars in Nicaragua, and mod­eled least-cost pow­er sys­tems for part­ners across Latin Amer­i­ca, South­east Asia and the Pacif­ic. She has worked with insti­tu­tions like the Nation­al Renew­able Ener­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry (NREL), the U.S. Depart­ment of Ener­gy (DOE) and USAID. Rebekah is a Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Chancellor’s Fel­low and at UC Berke­ley has won grants from orga­ni­za­tions such as the DOE and the Rain­for­est Foun­da­tion that sup­port her work.

Rebekah is now the Chief Research Offi­cer at Pow­er For All, a glob­al edu­ca­tion and advo­ca­cy ini­tia­tive found­ed by ener­gy access prac­ti­tion­ers to advance renew­able solu­tions for uni­ver­sal ener­gy access, with focused cam­paigns in sub-Saha­ran Africa. For her work in build­ing the con­ti­nen­t’s first decen­tral­ized ener­gy research engine Rebekah was named Africa’s Out­stand­ing Young Leader in Ener­gy 2018. Rebekah now lives and works in Nairo­bi, Kenya.

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Energy & Resources Group
310 Barrows Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-3050
Phone: (510) 642-1640
Fax: (510) 642-1085
Email: ergdeskb@berkeley.edu


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