Destenie Nock
Assistant Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University; CEO, Peoples Energy Analytics
Speaker Biography:
Dr. Destenie Nock is an Assistant Professor of Engineering and Public Policy and Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Nock is a leader in energy justice, environmental justice, sustainable energy transitions, and the energy-poverty-climate change nexus. In her current work she is developing frameworks for understanding the sustainability and equity trade-offs for different power plant investments across the US. In addition, she has pioneered new measures of energy poverty to help utility companies identify vulnerable populations and energy deficits (i.e., energy limiting behavior and forgone thermal comfort). Dr. Nock is the Chief Executive Officer of Peoples Energy Analytics, a data driven company which uses energy analytics to identify energy poverty in vulnerable households. Dr. Nock received her PhD in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and two BS degrees in Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics from North Carolina A&T State University.
Abstract:
Income-based energy poverty metrics miss people's behavior patterns, particularly those who reduce their energy consumption to limit financial stress. We present a method for identifying energy poverty across millions of households. Using a residential electricity consumption dataset, we determine the outdoor temperature at which households start using home cooling systems. Using this inflection temperature, we calculate the relative energy poverty within a region, which we define as the energy equity gap. In our study region, we find that the energy equity gap between low and high-income groups ranges from 4.7°F to 7.5°F. In 2015-2016, within our population of 4,577 households, we found 86 energy-poor and 214 energy-insecure, meaning they are at risk of heat-related illness and death. In contrast, traditional income-based energy poverty metric identified just 141 households as energy insecure. Only three households were defined as energy-poor or energy-insecure by both our temperature-based measure and the traditional income-based measure. This minimal overlap shows the value of considering consumer behavior when identifying energy poverty and energy insecurity.
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