Erica Marshall

Project Title: Assessing the Efficiency of Low Carbon Technologies for Providing Useful Energy Services

Background

Better known as Rici, I initially was attracted to this programme as an opportunity to apply my science and engineering background to the broader issues of sustainable development and transition to a low carbon future. My undergraduate study was in Chemical Engineering, and I graduated from Cambridge University with an MEng in summer 2011. Whilst at Cambridge, I gained relevant experience through the Cambridge University Environmental Consultancy Society (College Balls Sustainability Project, organising and co-ordinating recycling), and gained valuable industrial experience working at BiogenGreenfinch, a Ludlow based Anaerobic Digestion company (summer 2010). More recently, I enjoy attending Leeds Green Drinks and am involved in a central group tasked with co-ordinating and overseeing the realisation of the commitment made by British Quakers to becoming a low carbon, sustainable community.

Research Interests

The taught aspects of the DTC, gave me the opportunity to study a wide range of topics related to Low Carbon Technology and transition; technical aspects of sustainable generation technologies, closer investigation into aspects of climate mitigation policies and broader modules covering introductions to environmental politics and economics. During my first year, I completed a smaller research projects on the subject of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines for location in an urban area and considering business models for Low Carbon SME (Small-Medium Enterprise) using the case study of reduce emissions of music festivals.

PhD Project

My PhD project, working title 'Modelling energy services in residential buildings', is an attempt to develop the perspective of the energy system from a supply focus to a demand focus, whereby building occupants demand not kWh of electricity and cubic metres of gas but the thermal comfort, illumination, sustenance, hygiene and entertainment that these delivered energy sources provide. By investigating in more detail how these energy services are delivered within buildings, and the variation of demand by different types of occupant, I hypothesise that the recommended way in which we retrofit buildings would change. By bringing together the three aspects of how energy services are defined and measured, how technologies contribute to energy services and how building energy simulation models can be used to model service delivery, I intend to produce a tool which can compare the energy input and energy savings for different retrofit options. My supervisors are Julia Steinberger, Tim Foxon and Valerie Dupont.

Thus far, I have presented my work at two events; International Symposium on Modelling Sustainable Urban Transition Dynamics, Cardiff, UK. 3-4 July 2013 and 7th International Conference on Energy Efficiency in Domestic Appliances and Lighting(EEDAL’13). Coimbra, Portugal. 11-13 September 2013. I have also enjoyed the opportunity to attend EcoBuild conference (March 2012 and 2013 and the ECEEE (European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy) Summer Study (June 2013).