Dr. Neil Strachan
Dr. Neil Strachan is an interdisciplinary energy economist. He is a Reader in Energy Economics and Modelling at University College London. Neil’s previous research appointments include as Senior Research Fellow at King's College London, Senior Research Fellow at the Policy Studies Institute, London, and Staff Economist with the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change, Washington DC. He received his PhD in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University in 2000.
At UCL, Neil's research interests in energy-environment-economic modelling include the UK MARKAL macro-economic, elastic demand, spatial, stochastic and other variant models. This modelling suite is heavily used for UK policy analysis. Further research is developing global energy models to investigate technological change, emissions markets, resource drivers and trade impacts; and stochastic energy models to investigate uncertainties in policy measures, investment strategies and social trends. Broader research interests focus on the quantification of scenarios and transitions pathways, and on the economic, regulatory, technological and social issues related to new energy technology diffusion.
Over the last 4 years he has been principal or co-investigator on research projects worth over £1.4 million. These include:
- 2009-2014: NERC, ESRC, EPSRC: UK Energy Research Centre II - Energy systems theme (Co-I - £1.1M)
- 2009-2010 FENCO-ERA: Analysis of potentials and costs of storage of CO2 in the Utsira aquifer in the North Sea (Co-I - €50K)
- 2008-2010: EPSRC, EON: Transitions Pathways to a Low Carbon Economy (Co-I - £90K)
- 2006-2007: BERR/DEFRA: Develop and analyse key energy scenarios using the UK MARKAL and MARKAL-Macro models, contributing to the UK Government’s 2007 Energy White Paper (PI - £90K)
- 2006-2007: DfT Horizons: Modelling of spatial and temporal drivers of hydrogen infrastructures, (PI - £120K)
Sample publications include:
- Strachan N., S. Pye and R. Kannan (2009) The Iterative Contribution and Relevance of Modelling to UK Energy Policy, Energy Policy, Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 850-860
- Strachan N., N. Balta-Ozkan, D. Joffe, K. McGeevor, and N. Hughes (2009) Soft-Linking Energy Systems and GIS Models to Investigate Spatial Hydrogen Infrastructure Development in a Low Carbon UK Energy System, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 642-657
- Strachan N. and R. Kannan (2008) Hybrid Modelling of Long-Term Carbon Reduction Scenarios for the UK, Energy Economics, Vol. 30, No. 6 pp. 2947-2963
- Strachan N., T. Foxon, and J. Fujino (2008), Modelling Long-Term Scenarios for Low Carbon Societies, Earthscan.
- Strachan N. and H. Dowlatabadi (2002). Distributed Generation and Distribution Utilities. Energy Policy Vol. 30, No 8, pp. 649-661