E4Dev - Durham University

Durham Energy Institute

The demand for energy in developing countries is increasing at an unprecedented pace and international business and governments are increasing low carbon energy investment to ensure that these energy needs are met. Durham’s researchers have been working with communities globally to understand how we can ensure that these new energy systems are optimised and fit-for-purpose, and designed to meet the real needs of communities now and into the future.

The UN policy of Sustainable Energy for All, and the Sustainable Development Goal 7 that aims to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all are being comprehensively pioneered by researchers at Durham.

The DEI aims to internationalise all its research and ask what it means for different economies, climates and cultures across the world.

Key Areas of Research:

Some of the issues that are being addressed by research at DEI are:

What are the challenges and opportunities of low carbon transitions in economically less developed countries?
What can we learn from experiences and new energy models internationally?
Developing new energy systems which respond to the needs, capacities and local knowledge practices of people in different countries and settings.
Addressing key development issues of equity and distribution through new energy systems and innovative approaches to collaborative energy governance.

Key Researchers

Staff	Department	Research Interests
Professor Gavin Bridge	Geography	Geographies of energy transition and governance; Organisation of global production networks for raw materials and carbon economies; access and control of resources
Dr Ben Campbell	Anthropology	Low-carbon development and energy transitions; Biomass to Biogas transition; Culture and sustainability; Environmental anthropology.
Dr Sarah Knuth	Geography	Politics and financing of clean energy transitions, climate retrofitting,
Dr Jessica Lehman	Geography	International environmental politics; resource politics; cultural economies of unconventional resource extraction; Politics of oceans;
Dr Andrés Luque-Ayala	Geography	Critical Geographies of energy; socio-technical examinations of ‘smart’ forms of urbanization
Professor Cheryl McEwan	Geography	Ethical consumption in the global South; energy transitions and community development; postcolonial politics and cultures
Dr Ashraf Osman	Engineering	Performance-based design methods; Soil-structure-atmosphere interaction urban data systems
Professor Marcus Power	Geography	Energy geographies and low carbon transitions; Critical geographies and genealogies of (post)development
Dr Jed Stephenson	Anthropology	Mixed methods and epistemologies; Socio-ecological change; Social inequality; dam and irrigation schemes in Ethiopia;

Featured Projects.

Some of the projects at Durham University focused on Energy for Development include:

Low Carbon Energy for Development Network (LCEDN) (Dr Ben Campbell, Department of Anthropology)
Wind Africa: Developing performance-based design for foundation systems of WIND turbines in AFRICA (2017 to 2020, Department of Engineering, Dr Ashraf Osman, Dr W M Coombs, and Professor C Augarde.)
Transforming Energy Access (TEA) initiative (Dr Ben Campbell, Department of Anthropology through Low Carbon Energy for Development Network).
Energy on the Move: Comparing energy practices among informal settlers in capital cities of Nepal, Bangladesh, Nigeria and South Sudan (Dr Ben Campbell (PI), and Dr Gina Porter Department of Anthropology, Dr Cherry Leonardi, Department of History, and Raihana Ferdous, Department of Geography).
The Rising Powers, Clean Development and the Low Carbon Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa. (Marcus Power and Harriet Bulkeley, Geography).
International Network on Urban Low Carbon Transitions (INCUT)– Australia, China, India, South Africa, US and UK (2013 – 2017), Department of Geography, Harriet Bulkeley and Andrew Luque-Ayala.