Benoit Decourt

Thesis title: Valuing the benefits of power-to-synthetic fuel conversion?

Primary supervisor: Ilkka Keppo
Secondary supervisor: Paul Dodds

The research aims at examining potential approaches to quantify and monetize the value of the services provided by power conversion to chemical fuels, from energy systems, business and other perspectives (e.g. energy independence, health…). It will then consider how business models for the technology providers of power-to-gas and power-to-liquids solutions can be developed to reflect and build upon these different valuation methods.

Biography

Benoit is a part-time PhD student at UCL. In parallel with his research, Benoit is Manager for the Schlumberger – SBC Energy Institute.

Before joining Schlumberger in 2008, Benoit graduated from HEC Paris. His degree focused on energy economics, notably through the prism of externalities internalization models.

Benoit started his career at Schlumberger Business Consulting [SBC], the external management consulting arm of Schlumberger. His projects included improving the oil production and recovery factor or cost reductions initiatives for national and international oil companies, with a strong focus on Africa.

Benoit was then recruited by the Schlumberger – SBC Energy Institute [SEI], a non-profit expert energy research group. The SEI has been created in 2011 to generate and promote understanding of the current and future energy technologies that will be needed to provide a safe, secure and reliable mix as world energy supply shifts from carbon intensive to carbon restricted. 

As a manager for the SEI, Benoit is leading the work pertaining to hydrogen, energy storage and intermittent renewables. He is notably the lead author of “Hydrogen-Based Energy Conversion; More than Storage: System Flexibility” published in February 2014, and has been keynote speaker in several conferences such as the 20th World Hydrogen Energy Conference held in South Korea in 2014 or the Hydrogen Power Summit 2014. 

Publications and other work

• “Hydrogen-based energy storage FactBook”, February 2014, SBC Energy Institute
• “Electricity Storage Factbook”, June 2013, SBC Energy Institute
• “Concentrating Solar Power Factbook”, June 2013, SBC Energy Institute
• "Wind Power Factbook”, May 2013, SBC Energy Institute
• “How to measure externalities in the energy sector? The Torun model”, June 2008, Master Thesis, HEC Paris