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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (3 results)

  • Thesis
  • Peer Reviewed
UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2022)

Energy justice has emerged as a rapidly growing academic discipline at the intersection of social justice, energy policy, technologies, and the environment. It considers how both the benefits and burdens of our energy system are distributed across society, particularly as our system transitions to address climate change. This dissertation contributes to this emerging field by investigating issues of electricity access, distribution of energy burdens, and fairness of energy decision-making. By combining technical knowledge of electric power systems, methods from applied data science, and theory from energy justice, the following research examines the implications of inequitable access to reliable electricity around the world. Part I of this dissertation summarizes and reviews the landscape, theory, and methods of energy justice in order to motivate Part II which applies these methods and concepts to three timely energy justice issues.

In brief:

Ch 1: Introduction and Motivation - Offers an overview of the landscape and evolution of the energy justice field through a systematic review and analysis.

Ch 2: Theory - Investigates the philosophical roots of energy justice theory by incorporating broader debates and approaches from political philosophy and other social justice disciplines.

Ch 3: Methods - Reviews methods for measuring distributive energy justice via equality and equity, noting their strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities to inform decision-making.

Ch 4: Application 1: Solar and gender - Using mixed-methods, this chapter investigates how the distributional benefits of off-grid solar are mediated by gender and class in rural Tanzania thereby investigating inequities in access to the benefit of solar electrification.

Ch 5: Application 2: Reliability of energy access - This chapter empirically studies the reliability of household electricity access in Tanzania, Kenya, and India using data from a diverse set of technologies. It thereby investigates inequities in how the burden of unreliability changes across different energy access solutions.

Ch 6: Application 3: Rotating outages - This final application chapter quantifies the extent to which a uniquely shareable energy burden of rotating power outages was inequitably distributed across communities in California in August 2020 and investigates the procedures that led to such outcomes.

Ch 7: Conclusion

    Cover page: Quantitative approaches to energy justice: The theory and praxis of examining fair access to reliable electricity
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UC Berkeley Previously Published Works (2018)
    There have been numerous emerging next generation solar cell technologies with the potential to disrupt the solar industry. Perovskites in particular have taken the spotlight recently with unprecedented efficiency improvements. To quantify the rate of innovation in next generation solar technologies, we used learning curves to model improvements in efficiency relative to three parameters: Time since first publication, cumulative publications, and cumulative patents. The learning rates found for perovskite solar cells are compared to those of dye-sensitized, and quantum dot solar cells. In doing so, this analysis aims to elicit a better understanding of the drivers of innovation for emerging solar technologies and identify technologies demonstrating extraordinary technological progress.
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UC Berkeley Previously Published Works (2019)
      Increased sensing and data collection in electric power systems from utility to minigrid to individual household scale are resulting in an explosion of data collection about users and providers of electricity services. In the push to expand energy access for poor communities, the collection, use, and curation of these data have historically taken a back seat to the goal of expanding energy access but are increasingly being recognized as important issues. We review the nascent literature on this topic, characterize current data management practices, and examine how expanding access to data and data sharing are likely to provide value and pose risks to key stakeholders: end users of electricity, microutilities, macroutilities, governments, development institutions, and researchers. We identify the key opportunities and tensions and provide recommendations for the design and implementation of new data-sharing practices and platforms. Our review and analysis suggest that although a common and open platform for sharing technical data can mitigate risks and enable efficiency, fewer benefits are likely to be realized from sharing detailed financial data. We also recommend codesigning practices with each stakeholder group, increasing legal protections for end users of electricity and using deep qualitative data in addition to quantitative metrics.
        Cover page: Review and Perspectives on Data Sharing and Privacy in Expanding Electricity Access
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