Pedro Palma

@fct.unl.pt

CENSE
NOVA FCT

Pedro Palma


                  Download Compact PDF  
https://researchid.co/pedropalma

EDUCATION

I am an environmental engineer, with a PhD in Environment and Sustainability from NOVA University of Lisbon, interested in technical and social mechanisms and aspects of green and just energy transitions and futures. I work mainly on buildings' energy efficiency and decarbonisation strategies, energy demand modelling and cost-effectiveness analysis, thermal comfort assessment, and energy poverty diagnosis and mitigation policies. I have authored and co-authored several peer-reviewed high-impact factor scientific articles and participated in national and international projects on these topics.

RESEARCH, TEACHING, or OTHER INTERESTS

Environmental Science, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, Building and Construction, Economics and Econometrics
14

Scopus Publications

Scopus Publications

  • Toward an enhanced policy and action framework to address energy poverty in the Iberian Peninsula: An exploratory analysis
    Roberto Barrella, Pedro Palma, João Pedro Gouveia, José Carlos Romero, Eva Arenas, et al.
    Heliyon, 2025
  • Comparative analysis of energy poverty definition and measurement in Portugal and Spain
    Pedro Palma, Roberto Barrella, João Pedro Gouveia, José Carlos Romero
    Utilities Policy, 2024
  • Exploring Energy Poverty in Urban and Rural Contexts in the Era of Climate Change: A Comparative Analysis of European Countries and Israel
    Dušana Dokupilová, Ana Stojilovska, Pedro Palma, João Pedro Gouveia, Eleftheria G. Paschalidou, et al.
    Energies, 2024
    This article examines the multidimensional problem of energy poverty, focusing on its connections to climate change and its manifestation at rural and urban scales across selected European countries and Israel. The study examined 31 locations in eight countries with diverse geographical and economic backgrounds: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, North Macedonia, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia, and Israel. The article aims to understand how winter energy vulnerability in rural and urban locations in these countries could be identified using selected energy poverty indicators and how it evolves under the influence of climate change. A set of sociodemographic, infrastructural, and economic variables, combined with climate analysis, were selected and assessed for their impact on energy poverty. We found that energy poverty in most countries depends significantly on location and regional development. Due to a combination of factors influencing energy poverty, rural households tend to be more vulnerable. Furthermore, climate change consequences will likely leave rural areas more likely to experience energy poverty in the future.
  • Hard-to-reach energy users: An ex-post cross-country assessment of behavioural-oriented interventions
    Luis Mundaca, Sea Rotmann, Kira Ashby, Beth Karlin, Danielle Butler, et al.
    Energy Research and Social Science, 2023
  • How much will it cost? An energy renovation analysis for the Portuguese dwelling stock
    Pedro Palma, João Pedro Gouveia, Ricardo Barbosa
    Sustainable Cities and Society, 2022
  • Process matters: Assessing the use of behavioural science methods in applied behavioural programmes
    Eceee Summer Study Proceedings, 2022
  • Mapping regional vulnerability to energy poverty in Poland
    Lilia Karpinska, Sławomir Śmiech, João Pedro Gouveia, Pedro Palma
    Sustainability Switzerland, 2021
    Raising concerns about the effectiveness of the energy poverty policy actions in Poland, such as Clean Air and Stop Smog, brings forward the need to apply different strategies to identify the energy poor. More than 13.7% of Polish households were energy poor in 2018 according to the ability-to-keep-home-warm indicator. This study proposes enhancing the model-based approach to measure households’ energy poverty. Our goal is to assess regional vulnerability to energy poverty in Poland. The study relies on three national datasets and is conducted in two steps. The Energy Consumption Survey (2018) and the Household Budget Survey (2018) provide data for modeling household’s energy poverty in the first step. The Local Data Bank (2019) gives information on the potential factors increasing regional vulnerability to energy poverty evaluated in the second step. We apply multiple linear regression to identify energy-poor households and principal components analysis to examine the regions’ vulnerability factors. As a result, we produce several maps showing the spatial distribution of vulnerability to energy poverty in 380 Polish districts. Our results indicate that some northern, southern and eastern districts in Poland are primary targets of energy poverty policy actions.
  • Positive Energy District: A Model for Historic Districts to Address Energy Poverty
    João Pedro Gouveia, Júlia Seixas, Pedro Palma, Henrique Duarte, Henrique Luz, et al.
    Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 2021
    The Positive Energy District (PED) concept has been pointed out as key for cities' energy system transformation toward carbon neutrality. The PED may be defined as an energy-efficient and flexible urban area with net-zero energy import and greenhouse gas emissions, aiming toward annual local surplus of renewable energy. Most of the studies and practical experiences about PEDs are based on newly built districts, where the planning and integration of innovative solutions are less complex and more cost-effective. However, to achieve Europe Union's 2050 carbon-neutral ambition, we argue that the transformation of the settled districts is essential, including historic districts, which present common challenges across European cities, such as degraded dwellings, low-income families, and gentrification processes due to massive tourism flows. This paper aims to discuss how the PED model can be an opportunity for historic districts to reduce their emissions and mitigate energy poverty. The historic district of Alfama, in the city of Lisbon (Portugal), is used as a case study to show the potential of energy renovation measures and solar PV production in households, cornerstones of a PED. The annual energy needs potential reduction due to building retrofit is 84 and 19% for space heating and cooling, respectively, while the integration of building-integrated PV technologies in rooftops and windows potentially generates up to 60 GWh/year. At the district scale, these two components of the PED concept could require an investment of 60M€ to 81M€ depending on the PV technologies in the rooftops, a sensitive aspect in historical districts. Unlike other mechanisms to tackle energy poverty, like the social tariffs, the adoption of structural measures like building energy efficiency retrofit and renewable energy integration will contribute to solve the energy poverty problem, which is significant in Alfama, in both the winter and summer. The highlighted investments require an innovative financial scheme to support not only buildings' owners but also tenants, as these are among the most vulnerable to energy poverty. However, the social benefits of that investment, on the health system, air quality, climate resilience, labor productivity, and social integration, would be invaluable.
  • Cooling degree models and future energy demand in the residential sector. A seven-country case study
    Raúl Castaño-Rosa, Roberto Barrella, Carmen Sánchez-Guevara, Ricardo Barbosa, Ioanna Kyprianou, et al.
    Sustainability Switzerland, 2021
    The intensity and duration of hot weather and the number of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, are increasing, leading to a growing need for space cooling energy demand. Together with the building stock’s low energy performance, this phenomenon may also increase households’ energy consumption. On the other hand, the low level of ownership of cooling equipment can cause low energy consumption, leading to a lack of indoor thermal comfort and several health-related problems, yet increasing the risk of energy poverty in summer. Understanding future temperature variations and the associated impacts on building cooling demand will allow mitigating future issues related to a warmer climate. In this respect, this paper analyses the effects of change in temperatures in the residential sector cooling demand in 2050 for a case study of nineteen cities across seven countries: Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Israel, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain, by estimating cooling degree days and hours (CDD and CDH). CDD and CDH are calculated using both fixed and adaptive thermal comfort temperature thresholds for 2020 and 2050, understanding their strengths and weaknesses to assess the effects of warmer temperatures. Results suggest a noticeable average increase in CDD and CDH values, up to double, by using both thresholds for 2050, with a particular interest in northern countries where structural modifications in the building stock and occupants’ behavior should be anticipated. Furthermore, the use of the adaptive thermal comfort threshold shows that the projected temperature increases for 2050 might affect people’s capability to adapt their comfort band (i.e., indoor habitability) as temperatures would be higher than the maximum admissible values for people’s comfort and health.
  • (Dis)United Kingdom? Potential for a common approach to energy poverty assessment
    Katherine Mahoney, João Pedro Gouveia, Pedro Palma
    Energy Research and Social Science, 2020
  • Energy poverty in Portugal: Combining vulnerability mapping with household interviews
    Ana Horta, João Pedro Gouveia, Luísa Schmidt, João Carlos Sousa, Pedro Palma, et al.
    Energy and Buildings, 2019
  • Energy poverty vulnerability index: A multidimensional tool to identify hotspots for local action
    João Pedro Gouveia, Pedro Palma, Sofia G. Simoes
    Energy Reports, 2019
  • Harvesting big data from residential building energy performance certificates: Retrofitting and climate change mitigation insights at a regional scale
    João Pedro Gouveia, Pedro Palma
    Environmental Research Letters, 2019
  • Mapping the energy performance gap of dwelling stock at high-resolution scale: Implications for thermal comfort in Portuguese households
    Pedro Palma, João Pedro Gouveia, Sofia G. Simoes
    Energy and Buildings, 2019