Siddharth Sareen: Norwegian Energy Poverty

Sareen was a researcher at CET when he received the CET Accelerator seed funding grant in autumn 2020. During the course of 2021, he became an associate professor in energy and environment at the University of Stavanger and led the project from there. The goal of Norwegian Energy Poverty (NO-EPOV) was to study the intersection of domestic energy poverty and transport energy poverty, referred to as double energy vulnerability with Norwegian cities as the context.

This was done through fieldwork including workshops, semi-structured interviews, analysis and road mapping. With the support from CET Accelerator, Sareen employed three research assistants and was able to involve a PhD candidate in the project.

ERC Starting Grant

Research from the project has so far resulted in a scientific paper (Double energy vulnerability in the Norwegian low-carbon urban transport transition) and an ERC Starting Grant application. As of May 2022, there are several papers and master’s projects in the pipeline. Since the commencement of this project

Sareen is happy with what he accomplished with help from CET Accelerator:

This grant served exactly the purpose it is intended for, enabling timely, policy-relevant work on an emergent area of interest, namely double energy vulnerability, focusing at the intersection of domestic and transport energy poverty. It also provided a launchpad for a larger grant application conceptualised along cross-sectoral lines. As an important bonus, it allowed me to hire three part-time research assistants who have since gone on to do Master theses building on the theme. Lived up to the name: Accelerator Seed funding!