Bryn Pickering

Bryn Pickering

Assistant Professor & Arup Official Fellow in Engineering @ Girton College, Cambridge + Senior Consultant @ Arup

Bryn Pickering

I currently hold a joint appointment as the Arup Official Fellow in Engineering at Girton College, University of Cambridge, and as Senior Consultant in Urban Energy at Arup.

Research interests

My interests include:

  • Climate-neutral energy system design at a high spatio-temporal resolution.
  • Decision making under deep uncertainty.
  • Short- to Long-term Climate-Energy system interactions.
  • Consumer-level demand modelling.
  • Consumer Energy Resources / Demand-side management.
  • Agent-based transport and energy modelling.
  • Electric vehicle demand and smart charging modelling.
  • Open-source scientific software development.
  • Accelerating knowledge transfer into industry and the public sector.

Background

My background is in Energy Engineering, optimisation, and scientific software development.

I graduated from the University of Cambridge with a first class Masters of Engineering (Energy, Sustainability, and Environment) degree in 2014, then a PhD in Civil Engineering (Future Infrastructure and Built Environment CDT) in 2019. My PhD focussed on the representation of district heating and cooling networks in linear energy system optimisation models, and their optimal design under parametric uncertainty. During my PhD, I also joined the Calliope project and became a lead developer of the Calliope energy systems modelling framework - a role I still hold today.

Following my time at Cambridge, I joined the Climate Policy Lab at ETH Zürich as a postdoctoral researcher. There, I extended my work to optimal energy system design at the national and continental scales, including developing the first-of-its kind high resolution representation of the entire European energy system. I also collaborated extensively with:

  • meteorologists, to quantify the impact of complex orography on Swiss wind power generation.
  • climate scientists, to understand the components of long term climate variability which will impact European wind power generation.
  • social scientists, to incorporate socio-political preferences into European energy system design.
  • industrial ecologists, to enhance our understanding of the impacts of future energy systems on material consumption.

Before re-joining EECi in 2024, I moved into industry. I have worked in Arup’s City Modelling Lab to develop methods, to integrate transport and energy infrastructure planning using agent-based modelling outputs, and then in the Urban Energy team (where I still work part-time), to enhance their energy demand and supply modelling expertise.

Publications