Access & Equity
The energy transition that is already underway will bring our energy landscapes into a cleaner and more reliable future. But that future must equally lift up minority and low-income communities and ensure energy access to everyone, both in the U.S. and abroad.
Recent Work
Measuring What Matters: Rethinking Energy Insecurity Metrics
A quarter of American households experience energy insecurity, forcing trade-offs between utility bills and other essentials. This digest discusses existing energy insecurity metrics and proposes a new holistic framework for measuring this hardship.
Looking Forward: Future Proofing SDG 7 Indicators Post-2030 for Equity, Outcomes, and Interlinkages
Although energy is central to sustainable development, existing SDG 7 indicators lack demographic disaggregation, rely heavily on input-level metrics, and fail to capture interlinkages with other SDGs. Drawing on existing examples of effective indicators across institutions, this brief outlines three recommendations to review the post-2030 SDG 7 framework.
Covid-19
Coping Under Strain: How Climate, Utility Disconnections, and LIHEAP Shaped Household Energy Strategies During the Pandemic
As extreme heat and economic shock collided during COVID-19, many U.S. households made risky energy trade-offs. This digest shows how utility disconnections and LIHEAP access shaped coping behaviors under climate stress.
Energy Insecurity During the Time of COVID
Millions of Americans struggle to pay their energy bills and avoid being disconnected from their energy services. This digest evaluates the incidence and implications of such for low-income families during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Featured Researcher
Sanya Carley
Mark Alan Hughes Faculty DirectorSanya Carley is the Faculty Director of the Kleinman Center. She is also Vice Provost for Climate Science, Policy, and Action at Penn and Presidential Distinguished Professor of Energy Policy and City Planning at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design.
Featured Researcher
Nicholas Pevzner
Assistant Professor, Department of Landscape ArchitectureNicholas Pevzner is a faculty fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and an assistant professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design.
Featured Researcher
Shelley Welton
Presidential Distinguished ProfessorShelley Welton is Presidential Distinguished Professor of Law and Energy Policy with the Kleinman Center and Penn Carey Law. Her research focuses on how climate change is transforming energy and environmental law and governance.
Featured Researcher
R. Jisung Park
Assistant ProfessorR. Jisung Park is an environmental and labor economist. He is a faculty fellow at the Kleinman Center and an assistant professor, with a primary appointment at the School of Policy and Practice and a secondary appointment at the Wharton School.
Featured Researcher
Oscar Serpell
Deputy DirectorOscar Serpell oversees all student programming, alumni engagement, faculty and student grants, and visiting scholars. He is also a researcher, writer, and policy analyst working on research initiatives with students and Center partners.