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 Lab, UC 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.

Estimating the Potential Impact of Renewable Energy on the Caribbean Job Sector

Road Map on Building a Green Economy for Sustainable Development in Carriacou and Petite Martinique, Grenada

Energy Policy and Sector Analysis in the Caribbean 2010 — 2011

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.