Neve Fields

Neve is a doctoral researcher in the Geography and Environment department at Loughborough University. She holds a Masters of Arts in Climate Change Politics and Policy and a Bachelors of Arts in Politics and International Relations from Loughborough University.

Alongside her PhD research, she is also a part-time research assistant for the FCDO funded Kenya-UKPACT project looking at Kenyan National Energy Planning and support for County-level interfacing on modelling data exchange. She is also a collaborator and contributor to the UK government FCDO funded Climate Compatible Growth (CCG) research programme. 

Supervisors: Professor Mark Howells and Professor Ed Brown

Globally, the energy sector is responsible for over two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, energy transitions are widely seen within policy and academic spheres as a core component of climate change mitigation and adaptation. Yet the concept of energy transitions presents a complex and ambiguous problem due to the significant level of uncertainties and disagreement on data, priorities, and resulting decisions. As such, both climate change and energy transitions are widely referred to as highly interwoven and complex “wicked problems”.

The high level of uncertainties associated with wicked problems have historically been a barrier to climate planning and action. Quantitative energy modelling has been employed globally as a method of mitigating this, aiding in energy planning and policy development. This project aims to explore how energy modelling tools can be advanced to respond to the specific needs and context of communities and energy planning goals, through the primary case study of Kenya’s energy sector and an exploration of county-level disaggregation and integration into energy modelling workflows.

Fields, N., Ryves, D., Yeganyan, R., Cannone, C., Tan, N., Howells, M. (2023) Evidence-Based Policymaking: Insights and Recommendations for the Implementation of Clean Energy Transition Pathways for Kenya’s Power Sector. Energies. 16(23), 7904. https://doi.org/10.3390/en16237904

Fields, N., Collier, W., Kiley, F., Caulker, D., Blyth, W., Howells, M. (2024) Long-Term Forecasting: A MAED Application for Sierra Leone’s Electricity Demand (2023–2050). Energies. 17(12), 2878. https://doi.org/10.3390/en17122878