As co-investigators, Prof. Fulong Wu and Dr. Fangzhu Zhang successfully secured The Bartlett Synergy Grants 2016-2017. The name of the research was ‘Urban energy innovation and transitions in China: spatial configurations and enabling factors’. The principal investigator was Prof. Vanesa Castan Broto from the Development Planning Unit at the Bartlett Faculty.
The Bartlett Synergy Grants scheme funds activities that lead to, or support, interdisciplinary research collaborations in the Built Environment. It seeks to enhance the Bartlett Faculty’s cross-disciplinary research that can bring multiple perspectives and approaches to global challenges, and as part of this wider approach, to champion ethical values within Built Environment research. Please see details here.
The investigators explored energy innovation and transition in urban China with a focus on spatial dynamics and influencing factors. The research generated important insights for academic research and policy making. Here are some related outputs.
- Castán Broto, V., Mah, D., Zhang, F., Huang, P., Lo, K., & Westman, L. (2020). Spatiotemporal perspectives on urban energy transitions: a comparative study of three cities in China. Urban Transformations.
This paper develops an integrated framework to study the socio-spatial and temporal dimensions of urban energy transitions to investigate the development and spread of solar energy technologies in urban China. A comparative analysis of three case studies of solar energy transitions in the cities of Foshan (in Guangdong), Rizhao (in Shandong), and Wuxi (in Jiangsu) demonstrates the framework’s applicability. The results map each city’s trajectory towards low carbon energy. Transitions result from dynamic interactions among central and local governments, solar manufacturers, solar installers, and residents. Alongside industrial strategies, locally-specific factors have a determining influence on the eventual outcomes.
Please see the full list of publications here.
The grant was closely related to Prof. Vanesa Castan Broto’s ESRC-funded project ‘Mapping Urban Energy Landscapes (MUEL) in the Global South’. See details here.