Announcing New Grants on Energy Equity and Energy Systems Modeling
Welcome to the summer 2022 edition of the Energy and Environment Program newsletter! There are lots of exciting things happening that we want to share with you, so let’s dive in.
We are very pleased to share the full list of grants resulting from our recent Call for Letters of Inquiry on Energy Insecurity, Distributional Equity, and Just Transitions. Totaling over $4 million, these nine projects cover a wide variety of topics and geographies, each addressing significant questions about the equitable dimensions of the clean energy transition in nearly 20 regions across the country. The full list and descriptions of the awards are available here.
Our Student Corner feature introduces you to two graduate students who each worked on large-scale, collaborative Sloan-supported projects, the Open Energy Outlook and The Future of Energy Storage report. These efforts provided unique opportunities for involved graduate students to contribute as an integral part of each team.
We also want to draw attention this edition to another important facet of academic research: conferences. These academic melting pots help to disseminate the newest research in the various fields, provide opportunities for graduate students and early-career scholars to present their work, and facilitate important networking that can lead to new collaborations. We highlight a few conferences we recently attended, and make sure to keep an eye out for future events!
Happy reading!
Evan, Jessica, and Isabella
August 2022
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Top Hits |
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University Energy Institute Collaborative (UEIC) Publishes Landscape Analysis
The leaders of the recently established University Energy Institute Collaborative, a network representing numerous U.S. university-based energy institutes, recently published a landscape analysis in the journal iScience examining these organizations and energy institutes. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Colorado School of Mines conducted a survey to identify and categorize existing university-based energy institutes and evaluate the potential for a national network. The study published in iScience details survey results and discusses issues associated with establishing a collaborative network.
Reviewing 50 Years of the Clean Air Act
A new article published in the Journal of Economic Literature provides a retrospective review of the Clean Air Act, examining the impacts on air quality, health benefits, and compliance costs. Paper author Joe Aldy was also supported by the Sloan Foundation through a 2017 grant to study principles for conducting retrospective reviews of energy and environmental regulations.
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MIT Releases The Future of Energy Storage Report
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Energy Initiative released its comprehensive, interdisciplinary study The Future of Energy Storage in May. This is the ninth report in the Energy Initiative’s long-standing series that delves into the complex issues surrounding a range of energy technologies and their role in decarbonizing the United States energy system. The study involved numerous faculty and students and takes a detailed look at different types of energy storage technologies and their roles in decarbonizing energy systems of the future. This project was supported by both the Sloan Foundation and received additional support from the Heising-Simons Foundation.
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New Model Predicts Risk of Benzene Contamination in Drinking Water after Wildfires
Researchers from Oregon State University published a study in Machine Learning with Applications that develops a new method to predict the risk of exceeding benzene levels in drinking water systems after wildfires. The team used a neural network model approach to develop their spatially predictive model. This research is part of the Sloan-supported effort, highlighted in the previous newsletter edition, to improve Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) fire resilience.
Immediate Rebates Might be More Valuable and Equitable than Tax Credits when Buying EVs
New research from researchers at the George Washington University finds that car buyers much prefer immediate rebates to other types of financial incentives when purchasing electric vehicles. Current federal incentives are structured as tax credits, which are time-delayed and mostly benefit wealthier consumers who can afford the up-front price of the car. Survey results show that consumers value immediate rebates much more than tax exemptions, tax credits, or tax deductions, with a stronger preference for these immediate rebates among lower-income households or those with an otherwise limited budget. The full study, recently published in Environmental Research Letters, is available here.
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New Grants |
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Destenie Nock
Carnegie Mellon University
To examine how household energy insecurity is experienced by different demographic groups at the state and national levels
Laura Kuhl
Northwestern University
To investigate the role of crises and disruption in shaping just energy transitions by examining three case studies in Puerto Rico, West Virginia, and Massachusetts
Wei Peng
The Pennsylvania State University
To improve how political economy insights are represented in integrated assessment models and deepen collaboration between energy system modelers and social scientists
Timon McPhearson
The New School
To better understand the impact of energy system failures due to extreme events by extending the development of synthetic infrastructure models in three cities
Diana Hernández
Columbia University
To examine the lived experience of energy insecurity in New York City through quantitative and qualitative research
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Nadia Ahmad
Barry University
To develop a place-based just energy transition framework by undertaking four community-engaged case studies in Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania
Bindu Panikkar
The University of Vermont
To examine rural and Indigenous just energy transitions associated with renewable energy microgrid development in Alaska
William Pizer
Resources for the Future
To continue the development of microeconomic energy system models by improving the representation of transportation, land use, and equity dimensions
Kate Simonen
University of Washington
To support the Carbon Leadership Forum in conducting a benchmarking study that estimates the embodied carbon in buildings
Briana Brown
Multiplier (National Science Policy Network)
To support the training of early career scholars through two cohorts of the Science Policy Scholars-in-Residence program by the National Science Policy Network
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Seth Blumsack
The Pennsylvania State University
To expand the multidisciplinary RTOGov research network examining the role and governance of regional transmission organizations that manage the electric power grid in the United States
Oleg Lugovoy
Environmental Defense Fund
To conduct an intercomparison study of open source power system models to inform decision-making on energy system decarbonization in the United States
Jonathan Colmer
University of Virginia
To examine the distributional effects of the clean energy transition in the United States by analyzing Census data
Duncan Callaway
University of California, Berkeley
To extend research on energy system reliability by studying how households in California respond to power system outages
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Keith Holmes
National Academy of Sciences
To produce a second consensus study report on the societal and equity dimensions of deep decarbonization and establish a multisectoral Deep Decarbonization Forum to disseminate findings
Rebecca Hernandez
University of California, Davis
To examine the relationship between renewable energy infrastructure siting and environmental conservation
Burçin Ünel
New York University
To host a two-day interdisciplinary conference that links academic scholars with practitioners to advance deep decarbonization interventions in connection with the Justice40 Initiative
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Student Corner |
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Katie Jordan
PhD Student
Carnegie Mellon University
My name is Katie Jordan and I'm a fourth-year PhD student in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. In my current work, I'm collaborating with Drs. Paulina Jaramillo, Jeremiah Johnson, Aditya Sinha, and Aranya Venkatesh at Carnegie Mellon and North Carolina State Universities on the Open Energy Outlook, a Sloan-funded initiative that aims to examine different pathways to deep decarbonization in the United States using fully open-source models and data. I've worked with the team to characterize novel technologies that may be needed to reach decarbonization goals across the energy system, such as direct air capture and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Our team uses Temoa, an energy system optimization model, to simulate a wide range of energy policies for the US, ranging from carbon taxes and clean electricity standards to zero-emission vehicle mandates. Dr. Jeremiah Johnson, Dr. Paulina Jaramillo, and I launched the OEO in a keynote presentation at the recent Macro Energy Systems workshop at Stanford University. For another Sloan-funded project, I'm currently working with Drs. Paulina Jaramillo, Peter Adams, and Nicholas Muller to explore how these and other energy policies may affect equity outcomes in the United States, focusing on changes in air pollution and how technological costs are distributed. We use Temoa to simulate the effects of different policies, and I'm developing spatial downscaling heuristics for equity outcomes that other energy modelers will be able to adapt for their own work to build on the sparse literature in this space and inform future equitable energy policies. I'm hoping to complete my thesis proposal this fall and plan to defend my dissertation in late 2023.
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Kara Rodby
PhD Graduate
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
My name is Kara Rodby and I just received my PhD from the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT. Working with Fikile Brushett, I researched the chemistry-informed design of redox flow batteries. Because of a unique architecture that allows for the decoupling of energy and power, redox flow batteries can be particularly competitive for some long-duration grid storage applications. My research utilized techno-economic models to consider how factors like chemistry choice, stack design, battery operation, lifetime, and supply chain constraints affect the competitive viability and, ultimately, deployability of this useful storage solution. This perspective was useful as I worked on the Sloan-supported MIT Energy Initiative’s The Future of Energy Storage study, which surveyed the landscape of energy storage solutions available to us now and in the near future and modeled their deployment under various future scenarios. These models helped determine what mix of storage technologies made most economic sense under each scenario, and what cost and performance metrics would need to be hit for such technologies to be viable. I am now working at Volta Energy Technologies, where I am continuing the work I did in my PhD by using techno-economic modeling to understand the opportunities and barriers to adoption for an even wider array of energy storage technologies. I am hopeful that my work throughout my PhD and in my new role at Volta is helping to get necessary, decarbonizing technologies out into the world so that we can combat climate change before irreversible effects become too great.
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Spotlight: Conferences |
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Conferences and workshops are crucial for disseminating research results and building networks, two of the main goals for the Energy and Environment Program. To that end, there have been a number of recent conferences featuring exciting and timely research on the transition to a low carbon energy system and that are helping to coalesce scholars into new communities of practice. Four recent conferences that we attended are highlighted below:
National Bureau of Economic Research
Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy (May 19)
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) held its most recent Sloan-funded Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy (EEPE) conference in Washington DC on May 19. Six papers were presented and discussed on topics ranging from the location and characteristics of green jobs to disparate impacts of air pollution from electricity generation. The full program can be found here.
Center for Decarbonizing Chemical Manufacturing Using Sustainable Electrification (DC-MUSE)
1st Annual Meeting (May 20)
Headquartered at New York University, the Center for Decarbonizing Chemical Manufacturing Using Sustainable Electrification (DC-MUSE) held its first annual meeting to discuss current research from the center, international and government examples, and next steps. More information on current DC-MUSE research can be found here.
National Bureau of Economic Research
Distributional Consequences of New Energy Policies (May 23-24) and Technologies (June 23-24)
The National Bureau of Economic research held two Sloan-funded conferences on Distributional Consequences of New Energy Policies and Technologies in May and June, respectively. Each workshop featured eight papers over two days. Discussing topics ranging from the impacts of carbon taxes, retail electricity price regulation, and job sector changes in the former to carbon capture, electric vehicle adoption, and coal decline in the latter. Full programs can be found here and here.
Macro Energy Systems
Macro Energy Systems Workshop (June 20-21)
We recently attended the Macro Energy Systems Workshop, held on June 20-21 at Stanford University. Macro Energy Systems (MES) Scholars from academia and industry came together to present their research, identify pressing questions in the field, and ideate and prototype ways to answer those questions.
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Announcing Awards Made from the 2021 Open Call for Proposals on Energy Insecurity, Distributional Equity, and Just Energy System Transitions
In 2021, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation launched a Request for Proposals (RFP) for collaborative social science research projects led by early or mid-career researchers examining critical and under-explored questions related to issues of energy insecurity, distributional equity, and just energy system transitions in the United States. Over 70 submissions were received in response to this open call. The Foundation has made nine grants totaling $4.1 million. The selected projects are led by a diverse array of early-career principal investigators and involve a range of disciplinary approaches, methodologies, team compositions, and geographic focus areas. Community organizations and representatives are also deeply involved in these projects, taking on integral roles in the leadership teams to define and shape the projects as well as specify what activities and outputs are most beneficial for the communities themselves. Some projects examine local contexts to highlight the specific needs of various, often under-studied communities and regions involved in energy transitions, while other projects take a larger-scale, comparative approach to identify broader lessons in implementing a just energy transition at scale. Additional details on these projects can be found here.
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