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.
The main focus of her research is 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 and 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 for which she developed a smart phone app 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. In the Governance of Low-carbon Innovation in Domestic Energy Retrofits (GLIDER) she 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 Oxford University she explored a combination 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.
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 qualified as a Retrofit Coordinator.
Background
Prior to starting academic research on energy efficiency and buildings, she has 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 Oxford University ('Occupants' interaction with the UK's low-carbon retrofitted homes and its impact on energy use'). She joined the ECI in 2009, since then she 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.
Research
At UK Centre for Research on Energy Demand (CREDS), exploring policies for reducing energy demand further and how policy can support energy demand changes that go beyond highly cost-effective energy efficiency, incorporating deeper technical changes and user practices, involving consideration of both technology-focused and people-focused policies. This is explored in two particular contexts: a) Policies for deep refurbishment of buildings; b) Policies for householder and organisational engagement. The work on deep refurbishment analyses policy initiatives and policy mixes across the world. In addition, it develops knowledge on three key aspects of deep renovation: time, timing and policy design; intermediaries and the supply chain; and the multiple benefits of energy efficiency.
Feasibility of a Retrofit Salary Sacrifice fiscal incentive in accelerating household retrofit investment (HEIF, Social Sciences Engagement Fellowships, March 2023 to July 2023) is testing the feasibility of a novel approach, using the trend for hybrid working as a trigger to encourage retrofit home improvements in able-to-pay households. The proposed 'Retrofit Salary Sacrifice' (RSS) policy scheme is to allow employers to provide loans to employees encouraging them to carry out retrofit energy improvements in their 'home office', repaid through the tax system via gross salary contributions. This fellowship aims to build effective partnerships with specific academic and non-academic stakeholders (i.e. Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy-BEIS, HM Treasury, Oxford Low Carbon Hub, University of Oxford and others) and facilitate the development of relationships between six groups of stakeholders (employee/homeowner, employer/company, Government, DNO, construction sector and public and private lenders). Testing the feasibility of the RSS incentive will enable discourse between these groups and allow to co-create novel narratives of the significant change in the current context linked to home efficiency.
Energy Demand Observatory and Laboratory (EDOL) (Jan 2023 to 2028) project will provide a high-resolution data resource that will track energy use in real households to understand how, why, and when domestic activity is impacting energy demand and associated carbon emissions. EDOL will develop a range of innovative methods - including innovations emerging around artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT) - for monitoring not only the energy consumed by different appliances, but also the different energy-using activities that make up daily life at home.
Projects
Research Eco retrofit app
EPSRC IAA-funded project | March 2019 to March 2020
Research Eco retrofit app developed a smart phone app 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. The multi-level functionality of the app will allow users from different sectors to select offline the level of information they need to build up their learning and ability.
Governance of Low-carbon Innovation in Domestic Energy Retrofits (GLIDER)
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.
RealValue project
Realising Value from Electricity Markets with Local Smart Electric Thermal Storage Technology (RealValue), using domestic storage heating in Ireland, Germany and Latvia to benefit households and electricity markets explored how small scale energy storage systems, within people's homes (e.g. Smart Electric Thermal Storage Systems 'SETS') can provide benefits to the whole electricity supply chain, from generation and distribution, through to wholesale markets and suppliers and ultimately to the end consumer.
CNTUR
Collecting New Time Use Resources Energy-24 (CNTUR), an interdisciplinary programme based at the Centre for Time Use Research (CTUR) in the Oxford University explored combined multidisciplinary methodological approaches and tools to collect, analyse an visualise data on electricity consumption, physical activity and time use in households.