Daniel M. Kammen

• PhD
• Professor at University of California, Berkeley

Because of the geographical distribution of renewable energy resources, the regional mismatch of renewable energy production and electricity consumption is now a logistical and a planning challenge in power systems worldwide. Interregional and intraregional generation–load balancing is an emerging techno-management strategy that offers an effective...

Hydrogen has been promoted as a revolutionary fuel for 50 years, yet usage is confined to oil refining and fertilizer production. For hydrogen to advance global decarbonization, many barriers must be overcome. In this Perspective, we examine the challenges hydrogen faces from production to usage, assessing its environmental and economic credentials...

Here, we propose a technique and a suite of potential innovations focused on the “body grid” in which devices, circuits, information networks, the human body, and the environment interact within a universal framework to achieve energy savings, new functionality, and improved comfort.

Offshore wind (OSW) power is critical to addressing energy security issues in nations with limited land and fuel resources. This study aims to assess the quality of OSW resources with high temporal and spatial resolution and to elucidate the economically feasible deployment of OSW using advanced power system models with Japan as a case study. First...

The electric sector simultaneously faces two challenges: decarbonization to mitigate, and adaptation to manage, the impacts of climate change. In many regions, these challenges are compounded by an interdependence of electricity and water systems, with water needed for hydropower generation and electricity for water provision. Here, we couple detai...

The use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a World Health Organization (WHO)-designated “clean” fuel, dominates household fuel expansion in low- and middle-income countries. This is due largely to support by the oil and gas industry, government policies, and claims of health and climate benefits over traditional biomass. However, recent randomized c...

As the world races to decarbonize power systems to mitigate climate change, the body of research analyzing paths to zero emissions electricity grids has substantially grown. Although studies typically include commercially available technologies, few of them consider offshore wind and wave energy as contenders in future zero-emissions grids. Here, w...

With countries and economies around the globe increasingly relying on non-dispatchable variable renewable energy (VRE), the need for effective energy storage and international carriers of low-carbon energy has intensified. This study delves into hydrogen’s prospective, multifaceted contribution to decarbonizing the electricity sector, with emphasis...

Cookstove carbon offset projects can progress multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including climate, energy, health, gender, poverty and deforestation. However, project emission reductions must be accurately or conservatively estimated to avoid undermining climate action and long-term SDG financing. Here we conduct a comprehensive, quant...

Background Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 calls for “universal access to affordable, reliable, modern energy services” for the 2.6 billion individuals lacking access to clean cooking fuels and stoves. Low- and middle-income countries are designing policies towards clean fuels, but often prioritize World Health Organization defined ‘clean’ fue...

Introduction Academic literature on energy justice sits at the intersection of a complex ecosystem of technologies, geographies, disciplinary traditions, terminologies, frameworks, theories, and methods. Its recent and rapid growth suggests it is of interest to a large number of stakeholders. However, these same features make aggregation and summar...

This document provides the supplementary information for the paper entitled “Carbon-neutral Pathway to Mitigating Transport-Power Grid Cross-sector Effects”. Here we introduce the carbon emission transfer model, the levelized cost of carbon abatement assessment model and the supplementary data.

Carbon offsets from improved cookstove projects could advance Sustainable Development Goals 13 (climate), 7 (energy), 5 (gender), and 3 (health). To legitimately "offset" emissions, methodologies must accurately or conservatively quantify climate impact. We conduct the first comprehensive, quantitative over/under crediting analysis of five cookstov...

As governments and non-state actors strive to minimize global warming, a primary strategy is the decarbonization of power systems which will require a massive increase in renewable electricity generation. Leading energy agencies forecast a doubling of global hydropower capacity as part of that necessary expansion of renewables. While hydropower pro...

Women and low-income groups experience energy poverty burdens disproportionately. Despite this, many electrification plans are gender and poverty-agnostic, including off-grid solar electrification which has and will continue to play a role in expanding electricity access in rural sub-Saharan Africa. In this chapter, we use quantitative and qualitat...

A pro-health fuels and stoves agenda based on the World Health Organization standards can realign lagging progress toward meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7’s call for universal energy and clean cooking access by 2030, combat the household energy crisis, and promote health and social justice.

Day-to-day changes in CO2 emissions from human activities, in particular fossil-fuel combustion and cement production, reflect a complex balance of influences from seasonality, working days, weather and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we provide a daily CO2 emissions dataset for the whole year of 2020, calculated from inventory and nea...

The United Nations identifies ensuring “access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” as one of its Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. This article focuses on the comparatively under-investigated question of reliability within the broader goal. We empirically study experienced household electricity reliability using co...

To meet the 2060 carbon neutrality target, China will need to phase out existing coal-fired power plants by 2050 or before. The electricity supply sector directly employs over 2 million and an additional 2 million when indirect employment including product and machinery production are included. To investigate the policy options and pathways availab...

In the efforts to decarbonize the electricity sector, energy efficiency approaches have consistently shown co-benefits that merit investment and further development. Tools that can help decision-makers evaluate the economic and environmental impacts could accelerate the adoption of energy efficiency measures and support the development of targeted...

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 calls for the adoption and continued use of clean-burning stoves by the 2.9 billion people relying on unclean fuels (both solid biomass and kerosene). However, to date, the clean cooking literature has found low rates of efficient stove adoption and continued use. This paper presents the application of a public...

Mini grids are increasingly recognized as a solution for the 840 million people globally without access to electricity and for the additional millions of people poorly served by traditional grid infrastructure. Understanding the role and importance of community participation in mini grid inception, design, build, and operations and maintenance will...

2.9 Billion people lack access to secure and affordable clean cooking fuels and technologies. Numerous studies and initiatives have attempted to design and implement more efficient stoves, but often these efforts fail as the combination of stove design, fuel access, or management issues does not meet the cook’s needs or preferences. This review ana...

This paper presents a stochastic model to quantify the impact of the electric vehicle (EV) on China’s electricity load profiles. Most of the existing literature utilized travel data to model EV charging behavior and ignored the influence of people’s social attributes that are significant for the accuracy of EV charging behavior. Based on the datase...

The energy-only-market implemented in China cannot strongly support large-scale renewable energy expansion because the renewable energy expansion may disorderly phase out non-renewable power capacity. However, non-renewable power capacity, particularly the coal-fired power capacity in China, can provide vital power system adequacy needed by renewab...

Noah Kittner is an assistant professor in energy in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Gillings School of Global Public Health and in the Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research examines the role of energy storage in the transition to low-carbon energy systems...

Taxis provide an important market for electric vehicles (EVs), but long charging durations and limited charger availability have prevented rapid adoption. Leveraging over two weeks of high-resolution GPS and battery data from almost 20,000 EVs in the all-electric Shenzhen taxi fleet, we analyze the potential to improve fleet-wide operations by opti...

To meet the needs of a growing population in a manner that is socially equitable, economically viable, and environmentally sustainable, Africa's electricity sector will require a major transformation . It has already undergone some important changes over the past decade. Efforts to expand access to electricity have proceeded at a slightly faster...

This paper implements a framework that catalogs and maps opportunities at a city level to support the electrification of the transportation system in an equitable way. Leveraging on the use of hyper-local air quality data, paired with sociodemographic indicators, we evaluate the framework in the City of Oakland, CA under a context of public and pri...

Background The health impacts of ambient air pollution impose large costs on society. Although all people are exposed to air pollution, the older population (ie, those aged ≥60 years) tends to be disproportionally affected. As a result, there is growing concern about the health impacts of air pollution as many countries undergo rapid population age...

Off-grid renewable energy sources are dramatically altering the energy landscape in countries with low energy access. While techno-economic perspectives are already widely discussed, the political economy is largely ignored, particularly regarding the institutions providing electricity. Two of many ways that the task of electrification can be frame...

Tackling climate change and human development challenges will require major global investments in renewable energy systems, including possibly into large hydropower. Despite well-known impacts of hydropower dams, most renewable energy assessments neither account for externalities of hydropower nor evaluate possible strategic alternatives. Here we d...

We study the cost and lock in of carbon intensive technologies due to weak medium-term policies. We use SWITCH WECC—a power system capacity expansion optimization model with high temporal and geographical resolution. We test three carbon cap scenarios. For each scenario, we optimize the power system for a medium timeframe (2030) and a long timefram...

The climate emergency increasingly threatens our communities, ecosystems, food production, health, and economy. It disproportionately impacts lower income communities, communities of color, and the elderly. Assessments since the 2018 IPCC 1.5 Celsius report show that current national and sub-national commitments and actions are insufficient. Fortun...

The diurnal cycle CO$_2$ emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production reflect seasonality, weather conditions, working days, and more recently the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, for the first time we provide a daily CO$_2$ emission dataset for the whole year of 2020 calculated from inventory and near-real-time activity data (...

The deployment of renewable electricity and electric vehicles (EVs) provides a synergistic opportunity to accelerate the decarbonization of both China's power and transportation sectors. Here, we evaluate the potential impacts of EVs by utilizing the SWITCH-China model designed to meet emissions constraints within its power sector while integrating...

Increased urbanization has led to more diversified urban structure. To determine the effects of buildings on climate phenomena, it is essential to better characterize urban land use. In this study, the maximum likelihood classification method was used to identify urban structures with the help of local climate zones based on remote sensing. A case...

The dramatic expansion in solar photovoltaics (PV) represents an opportunity to accelerate the energy transition by building clean energy assets into all aspects of our infrastructure. As solar costs fall, a data-intensive process of technology integration becomes critical to make solar, and ultimately both energy storage and energy efficiency, the...

Electricity and water systems are inextricably linked through water demands for energy generation, and through energy demands for using, moving, and treating water and wastewater. Climate change may stress these interdependencies, together referred to as the energy-water nexus, by reducing water availability for hydropower generation and by increas...

Energy poverty is arguably the most pervasive and crippling threat society faces today. Lack of access impacts several billion people, with immediate health, educational, economic, and social damage. Furthermore, how this problem is addressed will result in the largest accelerant of global pollution or the largest opportunity to pivot away from fos...

Amid climate change and public health concerns, world economies are seeking to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution from transportation. Population growth in cities worldwide will further increase demand for clean and affordable transportation. We propose a city-specific environmental justice mapping index, inspired by a simi...

Grid-scale storage technologies have emerged as critical components of a decarbonized power system. Recent developments in emerging technologies, ranging from mechanical energy storage to electrochemical batteries and thermal storage, play an important role for the deployment of low-carbon electricity options, such as solar photovoltaic and wind el...

The need for transitioning towards low-carbon energy systems, and the recent boom in available data, allows for a constant re-evaluation of global electricity sector decarbonization progress, and its underlying theoretical assumptions. Arguably, the existing decarbonization literature and institutional support frameworks focus on top-down supply si...

As global political discourse is taking place where the need for a cleaner energy mix is constantly highlighted, manufacturing strategies are becoming more relevant. Thus, the photovoltaics system design is a crucial aspect related with the overall sustainability. In fact, various countries are considering the potential to locally manufacture diffe...

Since the energy crisis in the 1960s, crucial research and activities were spurred to improve energy efficiency and decrease environmental pollution. To deal with the various problems the construction industry are facing, the concept of green buildings (GBs) has been gradually shaped and put forward all over the world, and green building rating sys...

Carbon dioxide has increased drastically in the last decades due to energy production, exacerbating the global warming problem. To address this issue, researchers have focused on developing energy production technologies from renewable sources. From the renewable energy sources, solar has shown great promise chiefly due to its high availability. Th...

Power systems have evolved following a century-old paradigm of planning and operating a grid based on large central generation plants connected to load centers through a transmission grid and distribution lines with radial flows. This paradigm is being challenged by the development and diffusion of modular generation and storage technologies. We us...

The strategic engineering of solar energy technologies—from individual rooftop modules to large solar energy power plants—can confer significant synergistic outcomes across industrial and ecological boundaries. Here, we propose techno–ecological synergy (TES), a framework for engineering mutually beneficial relationships between technological and e...

Increased sensing and data collection in electric power systems from utility to minigrid to individual household scale are resulting in an explosion of data collection about users and providers of electricity services. In the push to expand energy access for poor communities, the collection, use, and curation of these data have historically taken a...

A strategic mix of solar, wind and storage technologies around river basins would be safer and cheaper than building large dams, argue Rafael J. P. Schmitt, Noah Kittner and colleagues. A strategic mix of solar, wind and storage technologies around river basins would be safer and cheaper than building large dams, argue Rafael J. P. Schmitt, Noah Ki...

The research team developed several long-term energy scenarios for California that detail how the state can meet its aggressive climate targets for 2030 and 2050 (40 percent and 80 percent greenhouse gas reduction from 1990 levels, respectively)

It is abundantly clear that adequate, reliable and clean energy services are vital for the achievement of many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In essence, energy access has come to represent one of the intractable challenges in development, and therefore emblematic of the call for poverty eradication, and economic and social transforma...

In 2015, ASEAN established a goal of increasing renewable energy share in its energy portfolio from approximately 13-23% by 2025. Renewable electricity, especially intermittent and variable sources, presents challenges for grid operators due to the uncertain timing and quantity of electricity supply. Grid flexibility, the electric grid's ability to...

The rooftop solar industry in the United States has experienced dramatic growth—roughly 50% per year since 2012, along with steadily falling prices. Although the opportunities this affords for clean, reliable power are transformative, the benefits might not accrue to all individuals and communities. Combining the location of existing and potential...

This comment raises concerns regarding the way in which a new European directive, aimed at reaching higher renewable energy targets, treats wood harvested directly for bioenergy use as a carbon-free fuel. The result could consume quantities of wood equal to all Europe's wood harvests, greatly increase carbon in the air for decades, and set a danger...

Purpose of Review This paper explores the role renewable energy can play in supporting sustainable electricity access in Africa, with a particular focus on the challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa. Recent Findings The studies in this review highlight various power system analyses across multiple regions in Africa. These studies provide high-resolution...

The integration of small-scale Renewable Energy Sources in the Smart Grid depends on several challenges that must be overcome. One of them is the presence of devices with very different characteristics present in the grid or how they can interact among them in terms of interoperability and data sharing. While this issue is usually solved by impleme...

Energy infrastructure is critical to the future of any rapidly emerging economy. Unprecedented rates of growth in the global south have quickly raised the stakes for finding plentiful, low-cost energy technology options to keep pace with development needs. This demand has been a significant factor but is not the only one driving a global resurgence...

Consumption-based greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories have emerged to describe full life cycle contributions of households to climate change at country, state and increasingly city scales. Using this approach, how much carbon footprint abatement potential is within the control of local governments, and which policies hold the most potential...

Critical assessment of mega projects is emerging as a much-needed discipline in an era when, in many places, resource demands exceed environmental capacity. Using the Desalination Economic Evaluation Program developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, we show that by 2030, China will have the capacity to produce 20.7 billion m³ of water an...

Solar photovoltaics (PV) manufacturing has experienced dramatic worldwide growth in recent years, enabling a reduction in module costs, and a higher adoption of these technologies. Continued sustainable price reductions, however, require strategies focused in further technological innovation, minimization of capital expenditures, and optimization o...

More than 6,600 coal-fired power plants generate electricity around the world and serve an estimated five billion people. Globally, coal processing and combustion contribute 46% of annual CO2 emissions, and the resulting gases and particulate matter from coal combustion are harmful on their own and often contain toxic trace metals. The decades-old...

Renewable energy – such as photovoltaics and wind power – is rapidly moving into the mainstream, with global solar capacity set to outproduce nuclear energy capacity for the first time. But a major holdup has been how to store the electricity produced by renewables; consequently, good, cheap, long-lasting battery storage has been the Holy Grail of...

Distributed photovoltaics (PV) have played a critical role in the deployment of solar energy, currently making up roughly half of the global PV installed capacity. However, there remains significant unused economically beneficial potential. Estimates of the total technical potential for rooftop PV systems in the United States calculate a generation...

Disruptive solutions that are poised to change the world

This paper presents the first detailed long-term stock turnover model to investigate scenarios to decarbonize the residential water heating sector in California, which is currently dominated by natural gas. We model a mix of water heating (WH) technologies including conventional and on-demand (tank-less) natural gas heating, electric resistance, ex...

Mexico's recent energy reform (2013) has provided the foundations for increased private participation in attempts to offset or reverse the country's continued decline in fossil fuel production. This country is currently on path to becoming a net energy importer by 2020. Conversely, in 2015, and for the first time in over 20 years, the United States...

Fast growing and emerging economies face the dual challenge of sustainably expanding and improving their energy supply and reliability while at the same time reducing poverty. Critical to such transformation is to provide affordable and sustainable access to electricity. We use the capacity expansion model SWITCH to explore low carbon development p...

The clean energy transition requires a co-evolution of innovation, investment, and deployment strategies for emerging energy storage technologies. A deeply decarbonized energy system research platform needs materials science advances in battery technology to overcome the intermittency challenges of wind and solar electricity. Simultaneously, polici...

A number of analyses, meta-analyses, and assessments, including those performed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the International Energy Agency, have concluded that deployment of a diverse portfolio of clean energy technologies makes...

The increased penetration of uncertain and variable renewable energy presents various resource and operational electric grid challenges1. Micro-level (household and small commercial) demand-side grid flexibility could be a cost-effective strategy to integrate high penetrations of wind and solar energy, but literature and field deployments exploring...

Growing global awareness of climate change has ushered in a new era demanding policy, financial and behavioural innovations to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy. Dramatic price decreases in solar photovoltaics (PV) and public policy have underwritten the expansion of solar power, now accounting for the largest share of renewable e...

Significance This study identifies, characterizes, and values wind and solar electricity resources for 21 countries in the Eastern and Southern Africa Power Pools. We find that many countries possess potential many times their projected demand. However, because the most competitive wind and solar resources are spatially uneven, international transm...