Xinfang Wang (52Min)

University of Birmingham

Abstract

Energy resilience is influenced by various factors, including institutional, technological, financial and social aspects. Comparing developed and developing countries, the influential factors vary due to different priorities of the regions. This talk will focus on decentralised energy system through renewables and energy storage, presenting a list of research projects in the UK, Mexico and Nepal, discussing the barriers and opportunities in relation to innovation system, institutional framework and capabilities. Taking energy storage as an example, the Technological Innovation System analysis shows the prospect of revenue drives private sector investment that increases returns to scale, which leads to economic jurisdictional arbitrage that transfers Intellectual Property and value across global markets. Energy storage could be deployed for different reasons according to international and regional contexts. In areas where access to energy is limited, energy storage combined with renewables could improve capabilities, meeting social and development needs of the regions. It is important that policymakers consider a holistic set of factors according to the specific context, connecting closely to stakeholders at the national, regional and local scales, as well as across sectors to achieve energy resilience.

Brief Bio

Dr Xinfang Wang is an interdisciplinary Research Fellow from the University of Birmingham in the UK. She was previously based in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester where she completed her PhD entitled ‘Understanding the drivers behind high energy consumption within UK households: an interdisciplinary approach’. During her PhD, she applied an interdisciplinary approach including social practices and cluster analysis to understand energy use in homes. Xinfang is currently working on a list of projects at the University of Birmingham focusing on decentralised energy system with renewables and energy storage, which look at local energy system innovation, resilience in relation to acute and chronic shocks, institutional framework, policy analysis, capabilities and social practices. Xinfang takes a whole system approach in her work, considering the interactions across the power, transport and heating/cooling sectors. She is experienced in applying both qualitative and quantitative approaches in her work, and have used Technological Innovation Systems framework, causal loop model, Social Network Analysis approach, social practice theory, capabilities approach, multi-criteria decision-making technique and clustering method in her research. Xinfang’s work not only covers developed countries, but also developing countries such as Mexico, Nepal, Kenya and India.