###Low carbon future: Energy-economic modelling for climate change scenarios for stand-alone solar home systems
Project ID: 2228bd1070 (You will need this ID for your application)
Research Theme: Energy and Decarbonisation
UCL Lead department: Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction
Lead Supervisor: Priti Parikh
Project Summary:
Almost 800 million people live without access to reliable electricity with majority of population located in Africa. This is due to high incremental costs of grid extensions and low per-capita energy consumption. COP27 reinforced the need to develop low carbon solutions for off-grid electricity provision at scale.
There is a paucity of high quality data and models suitable for off-grid systems. This research will develop machine learning models for time series data analysis and forecasting, using novel real-time energy consumption data from 50,000 consumers provided by industry partner Bboxx Ltd at no cost. The student will be trained in data mining, data science and modelling techniques.
This research will 1) develop models of consumer’s current and future energy needs, using both static data (appliances, gender, age, household-size, income) and time-series data (payment patterns); 2) evaluate links between household energy consumption and economic development; 3) evaluate the impact of climate change through time series modelling of energy consumption and payment patterns before and after floods/droughts.
The novelty is modelling impacts of climate change on energy consumption and economic development using real time data. Whilst the consumer base is in Africa the models can be applied globally to inform low carbon transition pathways for communities. This unique dataset will offer insights into consumers in resource challenged settings interact with energy systems and what future pathways for clean energy would look like.
The primary supervisor has a long standing collaboration with the industry partner as part of her Royal Academy of Engineering Chair fellowship. This doctorate research will fall under this framework agreement and hence will connect the potential PhD applicant to a network of researchers working on energy access barriers and opportunities for sub-Saharan Africa.