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Dr Nadia Ameli
Principal Research Fellow
Bartlett School Env, Energy & Resources
Faculty of the Built Environment
- Joined UCL
- 1st Feb 2016
Research summary
My research focuses on energy economics, climate finance, financial networks and policy evaluation. I have led the following projects:
ERC Starting Grant LINKS (2019-2024)
LINKS aims to contribute to a transformation of the climate finance system to deliver the scale and quality of investment needed to meet the Paris goals. By understanding the architecture of the financial system, exploring macro patterns in low-carbon investment emerging from observed investors' behaviour and interactions, and designing cross-cutting policies aligned with long-term climate goals, LINKS will promote essential guidance for a re-orientation of financial flows towards low-carbon investment.
The GREEN-WIN project
The GREEN-WIN project develops a major international transdisciplinary research collaboration to apply a solution-oriented approach targeted at increasing the understanding of links between climate action and sustainability and overcoming implementation barriers through win-win strategies. I’m leading the finance dimension area of the project.
The RIPPLES project
The COP21 RIPPLES project, "COP21: Results and Implications for Pathways and Policies for Low Emissions European Societies" aims to analyse the transformations in the energy systems, and in the wider economy, that are required to implement the Paris Agreement (NDCs), and investigate what steps are needed to attain deeper, more ambitious decarbonisation targets as well as the socio-economic consequences that this transition will trigger.
The Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) project
PACE is an innovative financing policy used in US to promote clean energy investment. I explored the application of PACE to the Italian context and its potential to provide a major boost towards the achievement of grid parity between solar energy and conventional sources in Italy. I have also conducted the first rigorous evaluation study of its effectiveness by employing a spatial regression discontinuity based on California data.
Technology adoption across OECD countries project
This project explores the slow adoption of clean energy investments. Using micro-data from the OECD Survey on Household Environmental Behaviour and Attitudes, I assess factors influencing households’ decision-making processes when adopting new clean energy technologies, with a particular attention to behavioural determinants.
Biography
I am an experienced researcher on economic, finance and policy aspects of climate change and related energy issues. Since I started my PhD, my works investigated questions related to financial barriers of low-carbon investments.
Currently, I am a Principal Researcher Fellow with a proleptic Academic Appointment at UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources (UCL ISR). I have recently been awarded an ERC Starting Grant (LINKS) focusing on the role of climate finance to meet the Paris Goals (2019-2024).
I joined UCL ISR in 2016 to lead the finance research area of two EU Horizon2020, projects, namely GREEN-WIN and RIPPLES projects. Both projects explore the cross-cutting role of finance in overcoming barriers to climate adaptation, mitigation and sustainability action with particular emphasis on exploring avenues for integrating climate/sustainability public policies with mainstream finance framework and system.
While at the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Lab, UC Berkeley under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Kammen, we have explored an innovative approach, namely the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), to overcome the first-investment costs of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Demonstrating the success and novelty of this scheme, PACE was awarded #1World Changing Idea of 2009.
I am also bringing research insights into policymaking and practical experience to bear upon academic studies. I have co-organised with 2 Investing Initiative (2ii) and HSBC, two workshops on climate finance in London, and supported the research work at several international policy organisations, including the OECD, the European Commission and the Global Green Growth Institute.
I completed my PhD in Business Administration at Polytechnic University of Marche and University of California, Berkeley (co-tutorship of doctoral thesis) with a focus on energy financing policy. My research interests include climate finance, financial networks, policy evaluation methods, low-carbon investments and energy policy.