MODERATED POLICY · Modelling Residential and Transport Energy for Downstream Policies

Modelling Residential and Transport Energy for Downstream Policies

The goal of the project is to determine the potential impact of downstream policies (policies addressing the end users directly), especially carbon trading at the personal or household level, in order to mitigate carbon emissions from the domestic sector (residential/in-home and personal transport) of the economy. The project made contributions to modelling in-house and transportation energy demand through developing an econometric demand model allowing for substitution between the energy consumptions in-house and for transportation needs of the households, as well as through a questionnaire survey on responses to personal carbon trading. There is a lack of understanding of the potential tradeoff between household's in-house energy use for cooking, heating, lighting and energy use for personal transportation, primarily through car use. This project aimed to fill this gap in the context of a carbon trading policy in the household level, something which has not been studied at all. The headline conclusion is that on average energy use and carbon emissions from the transport use are more flexible and amenable compared to in-home energy use under a downstream carbon trading policy. However there are substantial heterogeneity among the respondents. Beside the project itself, the CIG scholar has integrated very well with the research community in the UK and Europe. The researcher has been promoted to an Associate Professorship in 2016 indicating rapid career progression. Since the award of the project, the scholar had published 19 journal papers (and 3 more under review) in the top journals of different fields (Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Journal of Transport Geography, Environmental Science and Technology, Energy Policy, etc.), which reflects the multidisciplinary expertise of the scholar. Of these 22 papers, 14 are first authored, and 11 are sole-authored, indicating the research and intellectual independence of the researcher. Two of these articles have reached the most downloaded status of respective journals: one in Transportation Research Part A, another in Fire Technology – this reveals both the quality and relevance of the scholar’s research. The CIG researcher was also successful in attracting research grant from the industry and also reached the final round of European Research Council starter grant competition indicating his progression as a potentially world class research leader. The scholar’s research has attracted wide media attention and he was interviewed by professional magazines and radio stations.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union