Access to sustainable and
modern energy services is an essential element of development and
underlies the achievement of many other development goals such as
education and health. The Energy, poverty and development group
at the ERC undertakes exciting and diverse research around the themes of
energy and poverty. The group promotes an interdisciplinary approach to
exploring energy poverty, which itself is a cross-cutting topic that
covers many different research areas including politics and development,
science and technology, health and environmental sciences.
This group conducts
research to support and inform policy as well as identify good practice
approaches to energy access interventions. In particular they undertake
targeted research investigating energy needs and consumption patterns of
low-income households; as well as assessing energy supply programmes to
better understand successful approaches and the potential for
replicability and scalability.
The EPD group is an
affiliate of the UNEP-facilitated Global Network for Sustainable Energy
for Development and has a strong international network of research
centres in other countries with whom collaborative and comparative
studies are undertaken. The team also collaborates with other groups at
the ERC, for example in the area of climate change mitigation and
poverty.
The current areas of
interest for the group include:
- Access to modern
and sustainable energy for the poor
- Development of a
household energy policy for South Africa
- Access to
low-carbon and renewable energy technologies
- Community
development potential of South Africa’s renewables procurement
programme
- The
water-energy nexus in the context of climate change.
Current
projects
Construction waste
wood in the informal catering economy
Research project within
the Technology Deployment for Sustainable Development Project (Township
Caterers Project)
Holle Linnea Wlokas
and Anya Boyd
2011 - ongoing
Socio-economic
development opportunities in the Renewable Energy Independent Power
Producer Procurement Programme
Louise Tait and Holle
Linnea Wlokas
2011 - ongoing
Poverty and inequality
work in
MAPS programme
Holle Linnea Wlokas
2011- ongoing
Sustainable development
and mitigation of GHG emissions
E2C2 and Holle Linnea
Wlokas
2012 - ongoing
The current and future
role of paraffin as a low-income household fuel in South Africa
Louise Tait
Paraffin Safety
Association of South Africa
2012 - ongoing
The Rising Powers, Clean
Development and the Low Carbon Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa
Gisela Prasad
A collaborative project
with the University of Durham, University of Sussex and the Chinese
Academy of Sciences (2012-2015)
2012 - ongoing
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