PhD candidate
Tel +64 3 479 8059
Email jefferson.dew@postgrad.otago.ac.nz
Jefferson is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Sustainability. Jefferson completed a Bachelor of Applied Science with Honours at the University of Otago in 2016 focusing on residential energy use. Jefferson is looking at agriculture energy use and is also carrying out research into electric vehicles part-time.
Growing up in the shadow of the Tararua ranges, Jefferson has a love for tramping and the outdoors as well as choral singing and playing the double bass.
Research
Demand Response in Agriculture
Jefferson is researching the social and technical barriers to increased demand response capabilities in the agricultural sector. More flexible consumption of electricity has the potential to reduce costs to consumers and enable more renewable energy use in New Zealand. This research is part of the National Science Challenge – Science for Technological Innovation aimed at tackling New Zealand's hi-tech challenges to grow our economy.
Flexibility in the consumption of electricity has the potential to enable greater penetration of renewable energy in New Zealand, lowering costs and greenhouse gas emissions. To date there is limited uptake of demand flexibility programmes such as the Transpower Demand Response scheme despite the agricultural sector making significant contributions to summer seasonal peaks in electricity consumption in highly irrigated areas especially. I will work with farmers and other stakeholders in the energy and agriculture sectors to find the barriers to engagement with these initiatives and work to enable more effective use of energy on NZ farms.
Supervisors
- Dr Janet Stephenson (Centre for Sustainability)
- Dr Sara Walton (Management Department)
- Associate Professor Michael Jack (Physics Department)