Profile
Marina Topouzi is an interdisciplinary researcher with a strong background in building energy usage and demand. Her primary research focuses on understanding the complexities of energy transition as a socio-technical systems challenge, spanning various scales and proposing innovative solutions. Her extensive research covers a wide spectrum, including building performance, technical innovations, user behaviour, and retrofit policy initiatives, encompassing both technology-driven and people-centric approaches.
Research
The main focus of her research is on building retrofit processes and their alignment with net-zero energy targets, with particular attention to three critical areas: the timing and design of policies, the roles played by intermediaries and the supply chain, and the multifaceted benefits of energy efficiency measures.
Marina’s diverse research portfolio addresses crucial facets of the field and examples of her projects include:
Innovative policy and financial mechanisms for retrofit: Developing innovative policy ideas to incentivise domestic retrofit. From 2018 to 2023 she contributed to the 'policy and governance' theme within the Centre for Research on Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS). Her work within CREDS was dedicated to advancing retrofit policies, addressing current barriers to achieving rapid, high-quality retrofit uptake. During this period, she developed an innovative financial incentive known as the Retrofit Salary Sacrifice. Some of her most recent projects in these areas include the Research Eco retrofit app; a smart phone app she developed as a learning platform and risk management tool to support low-energy skills literacy and to mitigate risk of poor-quality retrofits by increasing users' understanding of technical problems, roles and responsibilities during the retrofit process. Governance of Low-carbon Innovation in Domestic Energy Retrofits (GLIDER) explored the institutional context and patterns of decision-making among construction firms in the market for Repair, Maintenance and Improvement (RMI) of homes investigating retrofit process risks of low-carbon housing stock renovation and procedures to avoid or minimise risks in a retrofit process to increase quality assurance between design and implementation stages.
Building user systems dynamics and electricity demand: Examining the dynamic interactions between occupants and buildings and low carbon technologies. Analysing the impact of buildings user activities and time flexibility on electricity demand. Marina's current research is within the Energy Demand Observatory and Laboratory (EDOL), a major five-year project extending from 2023 to 2027. In this initiative, she is actively involved in developing innovative tools for collecting high-quality, longitudinal quantitative and qualitative data from over 2,000 UK households. Previously in the RealValue Horizon 2020 project Realising Value from Electricity Markets with Local Smart Electric Thermal Storage Technology (RealValue), she looked at specific technology of domestic storage heating in Ireland, Germany and Latvia to benefit households and electricity markets and the adoption of small-scale energy storage systems in households. In the CNTUR Collecting New Time Use Resources Energy-24 (CNTUR), an interdisciplinary programme based at the Centre for Time Use Research (CTUR) in the University of Oxford, she explored combinations of innovative multidisciplinary methodological approaches and tools (activity watch, sensors, cameras) to collect, analyse and visualise data on electricity consumption, physical activity and time use in households.
Performance gap analysis: Investigating disparities between intended/design performance and real-world outcomes within the built environment and the effect of new hybrid working patterns. Marina’s ongoing research includes developing monitoring platforms for capturing flexibility in Higher Education Buildings in the Dyson Perrins office building project; and taking forward the next phase of the Retrofit Salary Sacrifice for pilot.
Features
1. Catalysing NetZero retrofit: feasibility of an innovative salary sacrifice scheme
22 November, 2023
2. Think first before fabric first
15 January 2024
3. New retrofit standards, new roles, existing policy, do they all fit together?
18 August, 2020
Other Activities
Beyond her research, Marina engages in various activities related to energy transition and sustainability, contributing her knowledge and expertise to advance the field and address current challenges. This involves consultancy work evaluating various government policies and programs, as well as voluntary work with schools and local sustainability groups.
She is a member of the steering task group for the BSI PAS 2035: 2019 Retrofitting Dwellings for Improved Energy Efficiency: Specification and Guidance to support the Each Home Counts Quality Mark for domestic retrofit and for the non-domestic buildings’ standard, PAS 2038 in the UK sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS - DESNZ).
In June 2022 she was also qualified as a Retrofit Coordinator.
Background
Prior to starting academic research on energy efficiency and buildings, she worked since 2000 as a professional architect in a wide range of projects for the public and the private sector. Marina holds an undergraduate degree in architecture, having studied in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki School of Architecture and Universita degli Studi di Firenze. She has an MSc. in Energy Efficient and Sustainable Buildings from Oxford Brookes University and a DPhil from the University of Oxford ('Occupants' interaction with the UK's low-carbon retrofitted homes and its impact on energy use'). She joined ECI in 2009, since then has worked in collaborative projects as research associate in the EVALOC community project at Oxford Brookes University and as research assistant in analysing and evaluating energy data of a heat pump trial at Oxford University.