"The Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Clash," with Benedict Veraga

Benedict Veraga, PhD candidate at George Washington University, gives a talk titled, "The Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Clash: A 3-Dimensional Trade-off Analysis between Efficiency, Cost, and Emissions for a Northeast Urban District Energy Systems that Incorporates Distributed Energy Resources," as part of the Irving Institute for Energy and Society's New Energy webinar series.
About the Talk
The 2023 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change underscores the critical need for both adaptation to our changing climate and reducing further environmental impacts. This presentation focuses on the trade-offs among cost, efficiency, and emissions in a northeastern urban energy system incorporating renewable sources and storage solutions. It reveals concerning findings about conflicting objectives. The presentation will describe the model that was built and proposes a methodology to achieve a balanced compromise between cost, energy efficiency, and emissions, aligning climate adaptation with mitigation goals.
About the Speaker
Benedict Vergara is a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical Engineering at George Washington University (GWU), specializing in power and energy for smart cities. He applies optimization and machine learning methods to address energy scheduling challenges in cities with varied energy generation and storage capabilities. Additionally, Ben serves as an Adjunct Instructor at GWU, leads the university's Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) chapter, and is an Advanced Energy Group fellow, all with the goal of promoting energy literacy and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration.