“Modeling system integration of variable renewable energies in an Integrated Assessment Model: the new version of the WITCH model”
Samuel Carrara holds a Bachelor Degree and a Master Degree in Mechanical Engineering (Major: Energy and Mechanical Plants) and a PhD in Energy and Environmental Technologies, all from the University of Bergamo, Italy.
After working as an engineer in the gas turbine field, he is now researcher at Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), Milan, Italy. His main research interests include renewable energies, sustainable development, energy policies, climate and energy economics, advanced energy systems, and transportation. His research activity is mainly carried out adopting WITCH, the Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) developed at FEEM aiming at studying the socio-economic impacts of climate change.
In early 2016 he was granted a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship by the European Commission and he has currently been spending the outgoing phase as a visiting scholar at RAEL under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Kammen. His research project is “MERCURY – Modeling the European power sector evolution: low-carbon generation technologies (renewables, CCS, nuclear), the electric infrastructure and their role in the EU leadership in climate policy” (www.mercury-energy.eu). In his visiting period at UC Berkeley he has been improving the power sector modeling in WITCH (system integration of variable renewable energies, electric grid, and storage) and exploring interactions and joint applications between WITCH and RAEL’s SWITCH model.