On June 13th 2017, Loughborough University hosted the 4th annual LoLo Student’s conference. This year’s theme, inspired by recent unexpected political events, was “Energy in an age of uncertainty”. The range of topics discussed by both the speakers and the exhibited posters was diverse. Around 60 delegates came from right across the UK, as well as one from Germany – 12 institutions were represented by the speakers, and many more by delegates who attended.
The day included four sessions: the first examined energy from a social, political and economic context, the second focused on building energy modelling, the third examined energy networks and the final session included talks on occupant behaviour. This year’s conference included prizes for the both the best talk and poster. Mike Westrom (Durham University) won the prize for the best talk with his discussion of Japanese bathing practices, with Sally Semple’s (Heriot Watt University) talk on the variation in energy assessment calculations getting second prize. The prize for best poster was awarded to Roel Tersteeg (Loughborough University) for ‘Dynamic laboratory simulations of wind driven rain on solid brick walls’ with the runners up prize going to Thanh Dang (University of Huddersfield) for a poster on the thermal comfort of the Vietnamese ‘Shop house’.
The keynote speech was delivered by DEMAND centre’s co-direct Professor Elizabeth Shove. Her talk “what’s wrong with energy efficiency?” was a provocative and insightful look at energy efficiency through a science and technology studies lens, based on Bruno Latour’s seminal work ‘we have never been modern’. It highlighted several limitations with energy efficiency as it is currently imagined, notably its inability to account for human labour as an input – the practices of drying clothes on the line and using a tumble dryer cannot be compared in terms of energy efficiency.
The day ended with pizza, drinks in the sunshine and lively discussion about the day’s topics. The organisers would like to thank all the speakers, poster exhibitors and attendees as well as Elizabeth Shove for giving the keynote. Thanks also to Kevin Lomas, Karen Holmes, Rob McLeod and Jenny Love for their help in the organisation and implementation of the event.
Organising committee:
Charalampos Angelopoulos, Loughborough University c.angelopoulos@lboro.ac.uk
Stephen Watson, Loughborough University s.watson@lboro.ac.uk
Harry Kennard, University College London harry.kennard.13@ucl.ac.uk
Zack Wang, University College London zhikun.wang.10@ucl.ac.uk
Read more about previous conferences.
