PACE Members

David Shipworth is Professor of Energy and the Built Environment. His research focused on systems for provision of demand flexibility at the grid edge, in particular demand side response and peer-to-peer energy trading. He has a particular interest in the design and evaluation of field trials for providing evidence to government and business, as well as testing the consumer acceptability of, and response to, different flexibility offerings such as Time of Use Tariffs and Home Energy Management Systems. He is also Chair of the IEA Demand Side Management Technology Collaboration Programme.

Simon Elam is currently working across several research projects with a particular focus on improving the evidence base in the energy sector via beneficial utilization of smart meter data. Simon is also investigating the energy saving and energy shifting response of fuel poor customers to smart meters and time-of-use tariffs on a LCNF project (VCEE/Energywise).

Michael Fell does social research on domestic energy demand, with particular focus on consumer uptake and impacts of demand-side response products/services and demand flexibility. He is currently working on projects relating to blockchain-enabled energy retail markets, and smart local energy systems. His research uses social surveys, interviews, focus groups and systematic evidence review approaches.

Gesche Huebner is a Psychologist working on energy use in buildings. She focuses on ambient temperatures in homes, their relationship to energy and health, and on identifying novel impact factors on thermal comfort. She is leading the work package on Comfort & Control in the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (EP/R035288/1). 

Charlotte Johnson researches energy in cities and looks at the interaction between social and technical systems using anthropological theory and methods.  She is interested decentralised systems, new markets and distributional impacts. She typically uses a participatory research approach.

Chris Maidment is a researcher and systematic reviewer with an interest in the social and environmental impacts of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. His research includes meta-analyses, surveys and interviews, and he has experience of evidence use in policymaking from prior roles in academia and local government.

Eoghan McKenna is an interdisciplinary energy researcher who focusses on household energy demand and has interests in demand response (how households can be flexible in the times they use energy) and the adoption and use of low-carbon technologies such as solar panels and home battery storage systems. Eoghan works on the Smart Energy Research Lab (SERL), a five-year, £6M EPSRC-funded research project to provide the UK research community with access to smart meter data.

Alexandra Schneiders has degrees in law and politics and has worked as a policy and legal consultant for energy sector clients. Her focus is on researching the regulatory requirements for the acceptability of peer-to-peer energy trading and demand side management through blockchains. More broadly, she is interested in the interaction between industry, government and consumers within peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms.

Ellen Webborn is a mathematician currently involved in smart meter data projects, including the design and development of the Smart Energy Research Labl (SERL project). She is interested in developing and applying mathematical modelling and big data analysis techniques in the area of end use energy demand.

Clare Hanmer is researching home heating energy demand, with a focus on daily demand patterns and how flexible these are when low carbon heating is installed.  She has a background in engineering and an interest in the social aspects of energy demand shaped by her career in low carbon innovation support. 

Anna Gorbatcheva's research focuses on peer-to-peer energy trading systems and how they can be used to promote balancing services and reduce grid constraints on the local grid. Anna completed her undergraduate degree in BEng Engineering with Business Administration in a work-study placement at Bosch in Germany. She holds an MSc in Engineering with Innovation and Entrepreneurship from the Mechanical Engineering Department at UCL.

Harry Kennard has degrees in physics, applied maths and linguistics and has worked as an energy and climate change journalist. He is currently researching direct empirical measures of fuel poverty using wearable sensors and the health impacts of low domestic temperatures. More broadly, he is interested in science communication and public engagement, as well as the historical development of fundamental scientific concepts.

Guy Lipman has degrees in mathematics, accounting, and philosophy of social science, and experience working in electricity and gas markets.  His research is centred on how individuals and companies respond to fuel mix and carbon intensity reporting.  He is also researching the role that distributed ledger technologies can play in created more effective markets, particularly in the context of consumer flexibility.

Patrick Osborne has degrees in History, Slavic Languages & Literatures, Russian and Eurasian Studies, Energy Politics in Eurasia, Russian Cultural History, and international economics & finance and has worked as a banker in wealth management for AXA and HSBC. He is currently researching institutions and organizations in the distributed ledger/Blockchain market as it relates to energy demand in the new economy.

Nicole Watson has degrees in literature, languages, and political science, with a particular focus on energy policy and quantitative research methods during her MSc. Her research applies experimental methods and uses behavioural economics as a framework for understanding barriers to uptake of new energy supplier models. More broadly, she is interested in research methodology, the public acceptance of changes in the energy sector, and the distributional impacts of the ‘energy transition’.

Moira Nicolson’s research in the PACE Group focused on how to encourage consumers to adopt demand-side response tariffs and programmes, with a focus on households with electric vehicles and heat pumps. She also has wider skills and interest in the distributional impacts of having a 'smarter' grid, policy impact assessment and how make to research more transparent and replicable. Her research methods expertise lie in randomised control trials and econometrics. She moved from UCL to work at Ofgem.