Everyone in the LoLo community would like to congratulate Peter Warren on successfully completing his PhD on 21 August 2015 having passed his viva with minor corrections in June. Peter is the third LoLo student at UCL to complete the PhD having undertaken the MRes between 2010-2011 as part of the first MRes cohort.
Peter’s thesis is entitled “Demand-Side Management Policy: Mechanisms for Success and Failure”. Peter tells us more about his project and time at UCL and LoLo. His thesis can be downloaded below.
What was it about?
The policy side of energy efficiency and energy demand has received much less attention in the CDT, and the thesis aimed to contribute the fields of policy analysis and political science to the growing body of energy demand research in the UK and abroad.
The research involved a global systematic review of the demand-side management (DSM) policy evaluation evidence base in order to identify the key success and failure factors for 12 different DSM policies (covering different types of energy efficiency policy and demand response policy) and for 30 countries and 36 sub-national states across six continents. An additional part of the research was to provide one of the first assessments of the global quality of the evaluation evidence base for demand-side policy and show how systematic reviews can be applied to the field of energy policy.
What were the highlights of LoLo?
I would say that the three main highlights for me were the ability to do the PhD within a sociable cohort (most PhD students are locked in a basement somewhere by themselves!), understanding energy demand from a multi-disciplinary perspective (which is crucial in the design and implementation of demand-side policies), and the ability to regularly interact with staff and students with a wide range of expertise in energy and methodological approaches.
What are you doing now?
I have spent an amazing summer in Paris at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in the Energy Efficiency Unit, working on energy efficiency policy analysis in emerging economies. It is always good weather here in summer compared with London! In October, I start working at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) as a Senior Scientific Officer – Technical Energy Analysis, working in the energy demand field from the other side.
Peter’s LoLo profile
Demand-Side Management Policy: Mechanisms for Success and Failure – thesis [PDF 9MB]