Archive of Topic: Renewable Energy

Nia Novella Jones

A recent grad­u­ate of North­east­ern Uni­ver­sity with a B.S. in Indus­trial Engi­neer­ing with minor in Law & Pub­lic Policy.

I intend to research the inter­sec­tion of renew­able energy tech­nol­ogy, edu­ca­tion, and specif­i­cally prison edu­ca­tion pro­grams focused on STEM. Ulti­mately, my goal is to work with for­mally incar­cer­ated cit­i­zens as they pre­pare for re-​​entry into soci­ety. I aspire to work with renew­able energy projects in Africa to ful­fill my goal as devel­op­ing into a World Class “Energy” Engineer.

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.

Strategic siting and regional grid interconnections key to low-​​carbon futures in African countries

Recent fore­casts sug­gest that African coun­tries must triple their cur­rent elec­tric­ity gen­er­a­tion by 2030. Our mul­ti­cri­te­ria assess­ment of wind and solar poten­tial for large regions of Africa shows how eco­nom­i­cally com­pet­i­tive and low-environmental–impact renew­able resources can sig­nif­i­cantly con­tribute to meet­ing this demand. We cre­ated the Mul­ti­cri­te­ria Analy­sis for Plan­ning Renew­able Energy (MapRE) frame­work to map and char­ac­ter­ize solar and wind energy zones in 21 coun­tries in the South­ern African Power Pool (SAPP) and the East­ern Africa Power Pool (EAPP) and find that poten­tial is sev­eral times greater than demand in many coun­tries. Sig­nif­i­cant frac­tions of demand can be quickly served with “no-​​regrets” options—or zones that are low-​​cost, low-​​environmental impact, and highly acces­si­ble. Because no-​​regrets options are spa­tially het­ero­ge­neous, inter­na­tional inter­con­nec­tions are nec­es­sary to help achieve low-​​carbon devel­op­ment for the region as a whole, and inter­con­nec­tions that sup­port the best renew­able options may dif­fer from those planned for hydropower expan­sion. Addi­tion­ally, inter­con­nec­tions and select­ing wind sites to match demand reduce the need for SAPP-​​wide con­ven­tional gen­er­a­tion capac­ity by 9.5% in a high-​​wind sce­nario, result­ing in a 6–20% cost sav­ings, depend­ing on the avoided con­ven­tional tech­nol­ogy. Strate­gic selec­tion of low-​​impact and acces­si­ble zones is more cost effec­tive with inter­con­nec­tions com­pared with solu­tions with­out inter­con­nec­tions. Over­all results are robust to mul­ti­ple load growth sce­nar­ios. Together, results show that mul­ti­cri­te­ria site selec­tion and delib­er­ate plan­ning of inter­con­nec­tions may sig­nif­i­cantly increase the eco­nomic and envi­ron­men­tal com­pet­i­tive­ness of renew­able alter­na­tives rel­a­tive to con­ven­tional generation.

Carrara, Samuel

Samuel Car­rara holds a Mas­ter Degree cum laude in Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing (Major: Energy and Mechan­i­cal Plants) and a PhD in Energy and Envi­ron­men­tal Tech­nolo­gies, both from the Uni­ver­sity of Berg­amo.
After work­ing as an engi­neer in the gas tur­bine field, he is now junior researcher at FEEM. His main research inter­ests include renew­able ener­gies, sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, energy poli­cies, cli­mate and energy eco­nom­ics, advanced energy systems.

The Platform for Energy Access Knowledge

The Plat­form for Energy Access Knowl­edge (PEAK) is a project part­ner­ship between RAEL and Power for All,  a global cam­paign to accel­er­ate the market-​​​​based growth of decen­tral­ized renew­ables as the key to achiev­ing uni­ver­sal energy access. The cam­paign, estab­lished in 2014, serves as a col­lec­tive voice for busi­nesses and civil soci­ety focused on off-​​​​grid renew­able solu­tions. The research prod­ucts of this part­ner­ship will pro­vide crit­i­cal evi­dence needed to sup­port wide­spread adop­tion of dis­trib­uted technologies.

PEAK is an inter­ac­tive infor­ma­tion exchange plat­form designed to help aggre­gate and repack­age the best research and infor­ma­tion on energy access into com­pelling data-​​​driven sto­ries for a range of tar­get audi­ences to ensure max­i­mum vis­i­bil­ity, usabil­ity and dis­cov­er­abil­ity of that infor­ma­tion by indi­vid­u­als, orga­ni­za­tions and com­mu­ni­ties work­ing to make energy ser­vices acces­si­ble to all.

The Power for All Cam­paign is directed by Kristina Skierka. PEAK research is directed by Dr. Rebekah Shirley, cur­rent Post­doc­toral Researcher at RAEL.

See PEAK’s Launch Press Release, March 2016

See PEAK prod­ucts here and look out for our web por­tal soon to come.

Recently, PEAK con­ducted a quan­ti­ta­tive analy­sis that exam­ines the poli­cies of five high-​​growth mar­kets striv­ing to achieve uni­ver­sal energy access — India and Bangladesh in Asia, and Kenya, Tan­za­nia and Ethiopia in Africa — and high­lights areas for pol­icy pri­or­i­ti­za­tion in Low Energy Access coun­tries. Our research is cur­rently under peer-​​review. See an unpub­lished, draft/​working ver­sion of our man­u­script and look out for more infor­ma­tion soon.

Ameli, Nadia

For my web­site, click here.

I am cur­rently work­ing as Senior Researcher Asso­ciate at UCL Insti­tute for Sus­tain­able Resources  where I lead the finance research area of the GREEN-​​WIN project. I focus on cli­mate and sus­tain­abil­ity finance poli­cies and gov­er­nance arrange­ments in order to con­tribute to over­com­ing finan­cial bar­ri­ers to mit­i­ga­tion and adaptation.

Before join­ing UCL, I worked for the OECD (Green Growth Unit, Eco­nom­ics Depart­ment) as Marie-​​Curie Fel­low, a two-​​year research grant funded by the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion. At the OECD I analysed the effec­tive­ness of energy poli­cies to boost energy invest­ments in Europe. Prior to that, I worked for research cen­ters (FEEM and ICCG) and insti­tu­tions, includ­ing the Ital­ian Asso­ci­a­tion Energy Eco­nom­ics, where I was respon­si­ble for the Eco­nomic area (2009–2013).

Dur­ing my PhD, I was vis­it­ing scholar at the Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Energy LabUC Berke­ley under the super­vi­sion of Prof. Daniel Kam­men (2010–2011). I have worked on a range of novel ways to over­come the first-​​investment costs of energy effi­ciency and renew­able energy.

I got my PhD in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion at Poly­tech­nic Uni­ver­sity of Marche and Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley (co-​​tutorship of doc­toral the­sis) with a focus on energy financ­ing pol­icy. My research inter­ests include renew­able and energy effi­ciency deploy­ment, cli­mate finance and energy pol­icy.

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.

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