Davidson Lab

Examine renewable energy, power markets, finance models - Page updated Feb 1, 2024 with new application link. The UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) is hiring one or more postdoctoral researchers to conduct open modeling studies of accelerated decarbonization, with a particular focus on China. The postdoc will join the lab of the PI,...

Join a research team focusing on data collection and organization, modeling analysis, and writing on China’s electricity market developments and aligning market reforms with carbon neutrality - DESCRIPTION DEPARTMENT OVERVIEW: The University of California’s only school of international affairs, the School of Global Policy & Strategy (GPS) provides a unique resource for training lea…

Join a dynamic team modeling the engineering implications of large amounts of renewable energy and the effects of different electricity market designs on carbon emissions in China - China has the largest power grid in the world, and it is rapidly changing to accommodate to low-carbon goals. The Research Assistant will join a dynamic team modeling the engineering implications of large a…

Trade can help spur climate mitigation but is also a source of geopolitical tension - This project hosted at the School of Global Policy and Strategy (co-led by Profs Davidson and Garg) will look at the global trade in clean energy technologies with a focus on the China-India bilateral relationship. Trade can help spur climate mitigation but is also a source of geopolitical tension due…

Helveston, J.P., He, G., & Davidson, M.R. Nature . - Achieving carbon neutrality requires deploying renewable energy at unprecedented speed and scale, yet countries sometimes implement policies that increase costs by restricting the free flow of capital, talent and innovation in favour of localizing benefits such as economic growth, employment and trade surpluses. Here we assess the co…

Davidson, M. R., Karplus, V. J., Lewis, J. I., Nahm, J., & Wang, A. Science . - China plays, and will likely continue to play, an indispensable role in research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) and manufacturing of low-carbon technologies that are necessary to address climate change. For example, China’s scale-up capabilities that are underpinned by manufacturing process improvem…

Will Gao, Sonia Tan - Lab alumni have taken research positions at leading organizations on China’s energy markets. Huizhong (Sonia) Tan has started a position at the Lantau Group, a leading consultancy on Chinese energy and economic affairs. Sonia has experience with energy policies, state-owned enterprises, and the markets to facilitate a low-carbon transition in...

Develop open analytical capabilities to align market reforms with carbon neutrality - ARCHIVED These positions are no longer open. JOB OPENINGS: CHINA ELECTRICITY MARKETS MODELING AND ANALYSIS University of California San Diego June 2022 The UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) is hiring two research positions related to analyzing China’s electricity market developme…

Jiahe Feng, Arjun Sawhney, Yunhan Zhang - Undergraduate lab researchers are moving on to grad school and industry: Jiahe Feng will be heading to CMU for a masters in data science. Jiahe (Jeffrey) is a co-developer of the geodata package for geospatial analysis. Arjun Sawhney will be heading to McKinsey. Arjun is lead author on manuscript investigating...

Davidson, M. R., Millstein, D. Wind Energy . - Wind energy resource estimates commonly depend on simulated wind speed profiles generated by reanalysis or weather models due to the lack of long time series measurements with sufficient coverage at relevant heights (roughly 90 m above ground). However, modeled data, including reanalyses, can be noisy and display a wide range of...

Davidson, M.R. - China’s climate ambitions rest to a large extent on the activities of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) which are the dominant players in major GHG-emitting sectors, including fossil fuel extraction, power, and heavy industry. Despite their state owners and affiliations, SOEs are not passive extensions of the government, and their mixed private...

Open-source python package that helps to wrangle high-dimensional weather model data and diverse geospatial datasets to address questions of renewable energy planning and siting (and more) - Geodata is a Python library of geospatial data collection and “pre-analysis” tools. Geospatial and gridded datasets of physical variables are ubiquitous and increasingly high resolution. Long time-…

Davidson, M. R., Pearson, M. M. Studies in Comparative International Development . - China’s “economic juggernaut” is often noted to have arisen from successful market reforms carried out in the context of high state capacity. In contrast, we demonstrate that crucial reforms to replace central planning with markets have stalled as a result of major barriers of two types: institutional …

China's Energy Plans and Practices - Executive Summary On the road to becoming the world’s largest clean energy consumer, China has embraced a range of policies, including both demand-pull and supply-push, to shape energy markets. Resulting integration challenges such as high levels of curtailment are a symptom of both technical and institutional barriers, and will be...

Princeton University | Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment - Davidson will discuss his ongoing work examining the power system decarbonization landscape across the 11 states of the western United States under political uncertainty.

MAE PhD student recruitment - Prof. Michael Davidson in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) and the School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) at UC San Diego is seeking to recruit an MAE PhD student to join the Davidson Lab to model China’s decarbonization pathways starting in Fall 2022. The interdisciplinary Davidson...

Davidson, M. Foreign Affairs . - In the protracted, hope-filled run-up to COP26, the long-postponed UN Climate Change Conference that began in Glasgow on October 31, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry called the conference the world’s “last, best chance” of avoiding a climate emergency. In July, COP26 President Alok Sharma had declared that...

Topics include renewable energy resource mapping and energy equity - Lab members Arjun Sawhney and Isac Lee, and non-presenting author Jeffrey Feng presented their research at the USAEE/IAEE North American Conference 2021 and the Energy Policy Conference 2021 this fall. Isac Lee presented work on Financial Benefits and Inequities of Household Solar PV Support Programs at the Energy Pol…

Gao, X., Davidson, M., Busby, J., Shearer, C., Eisenman, J. Global Environmental Politics . - Global coal use must be phased out if we are to minimize temperature increases associated with climate change. Most new coal plants are being built in the Asia Pacific and rely on overseas finance, with Indonesia and Vietnam the leading recipients. However, the politics of coal plant finance a…

Sinica supchina . - On the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser chats with Michael Davidson, a leading scholar on China’s environmental policy, who holds joint appointments at UC San Diego as an assistant professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Jacobs School of Engineering. Michael unpacks recent announcements out of Beijing, including...