Latest Events

Speaker: Melvyn Weeks (University of Cambridge)

Melvyn Weeks is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Clare College Cambridge. His PhD is from the University of Pennsylvania, with fields in microeconomics and econometrics. He is also an Associate of Indepen and has previously held a position as Senior Economic Advisor to the Office of Gas and Energy Markets in the United Kingdom.

Melvyn’s research interest spans both theoretical and applied micro econometrics including policy evaluation, modelling demand systems in empirical industrial organisation; and computationally intensive methods including machine learning. He is currently pursuing a number of projects examining the impact of time-of use pricing in the electricity market.

We look forward to welcoming you beforehand for a sandwich lunch from 12:00 to 12:30.

EPRG Energy & Environment Seminars Michaelmas Term 2025 Tuesdays fortnightly at 12.30-1.30pm (in-person)

Please contact EPRG Administrator (eprgadm@jbs.cam.ac.uk) for further details

Seminar organizer: Zeynep Clulow(z.clulow@jbs.cam.ac.uk)

Speaker: ​Ben Lawrence, Principal, Boston Consulting Group, London

​Organised by the Cambridge University Energy Technology Society and hosted in collaboration with Darwin College Climate Society. Join us for a drink across the road at Queens' College Bar after the talk.

Demand-side levers are the fastest, cheapest, and stickiest path to consumer decarbonisation—touching ~60% of emissions—but adoption of EVs, heat pumps, and rooftop solar risks stalling as incentives fade and products are perceived to be costlier or inferior. The winning formula starts with the customer: moving choices from “should” to “want” as segments mature and needs shift. A >$200B market by 2030 is emerging, with value migrating downstream from hardware to financing and optimisation that provide flexibility for renewables-heavy grids. We see three resilient plays at scale: Turnkey Provider (own/finance assets; win on cost), Energy Optimizer (multi-asset optimisation), and E2E Integrator (value-chain orchestration). Many will chase the integrator role; few will win. The winners act as market-makers—customer-led in product innovation, partner-powered and operationally scalable & flexible.

​Ben Lawrence is a member of the Energy and Climate & Sustainability practices at BCG, focused on consumer decarbonisation. He helps energy retailers and adjacent players scale plays in EV charging, home heating and power, and demand side response. Ben has led European EV network strategies, diligences of energy-transition assets (charging, heat pumps, solar, storage), and digital innovation sprints to accelerate growth towards more consumer centric proposition. He works with global fuel retailers, highway and convenience operators, energy retailers, and energy-software platforms—from regional leaders to integrated majors. Before BCG, he worked in a consumer start-up and holds an MSci in Natural Sciences (Geology; Climate Science & Atmospheric Chemistry) from the University of Cambridge.

Do you have an idea that you think could make a real impact?

Is your research generating ideas or innovations that you think other people might want to use – perhaps a method, material, technology, software, or dataset? Are you wondering how to take it further?

Part of the University, Cambridge Enterprise works with you to help turn your ideas into reality for the benefit of society.

Register: IP & Commercialisation 101 - Registration form – Cambridge Enterprise

*Please note: this event is only open to current staff and postgraduate students of the University of Cambridge.

Whether you’re just beginning to explore or are already working on a promising idea, this workshop will help you understand how your research could be translated into real-world benefit. This session brings together insights from our IP and Licensing specialists – combining two previous workshops (IP & Commercialisation 101 and Research Tools 101) into a comprehensive start to making impact through innovation.

What the workshop covers:

• Intellectual property: learn how IP is generated and protected, from patents, copyrights and database rights to trade secrets — and how they apply to research outputs.
• Understand how the University’s IP policy is applied to staff and students.
• Licensing IP: learn about how IP leaves the University to be turned into a useable product or service.
• Research tools: discover how reagents, software and other tools developed in the course of your research work can quickly generate impact and revenue.
• Commercialisation pathways: discover how to assess the commercial value of an idea, understand how research innovations can be turned into products, and explore real-life examples of how Cambridge researchers have brought innovations to market.
• Getting the right support: Find out how Cambridge Enterprise can help evaluate your idea, secure translational funding, and connect you with key stakeholders.
• Consider possible IP arising from your own work
• Time to workshop and explore your questions and ideas.

Above all, this is a chance to connect with a community of like-minded individuals who are exploring how to turn their work into something that benefits society, with the tools and guidance to help make it happen.

Who is this for?

This workshop is open to current University of Cambridge staff and postgraduate students.

Ideas to Reality Programme

This event is part of Cambridge Enterprise’s Ideas to Reality Programme which is designed to provide members of the University with the guidance and tools to translate their ideas, research and expertise into real-world impact.

Speaker: Akshay Kaul, Director General for Infrastructure, Ofgem

Speaker: Herminio Tasinafo Honorio, Delft University of Technology

Underground man-made salt caverns are a proven technology for energy storage, and their usage is expected to increase in the coming years, following the current efforts towards energy transition. Upscaling salt caverns (e.g., systems of caverns) also raises concerns about safety and cavern integrity, which requires a careful lifetime assessment of their mechanical stability. In this context, this presentation examines the mechanical behavior and failure mechanisms of salt rocks, as well as methods for identifying situations that could compromise cavern integrity. The importance of a multiscale approach, spanning from laboratory experiments to field-scale simulations, is also discussed. Without diving into the mathematical details, a physical intuition is provided on how to compose a constitutive model to capture the different deformation mechanisms in salt rocks. Finally, the impact of different constitutive model choices and calibrations is analyzed in the light of numerical simulations.

This talk is part of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows (IEEF) series.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Catherine Pearson.