Charlotte joins from UCL Energy Institute where she was a Senior Research Fellow studying energy transitions with a strong focus on social inclusion. Building on a research background in social anthropology, she has worked on a range of interdisciplinary research and innovation projects, consultancies for government and industry, and public engagement projects.

Charlotte will be leading CSE’s Smart & Fair research programme influencing national policy and industry practice towards a just energy system transition.

Speaking about her new role, Charlotte Johnson said:

“I am very excited to join CSE and lead this innovative programme of work. CSE is an organisation that has long championed social inclusion and its research team has an excellent record of delivering tools and analysis for decision-makers across the energy sector, improving outcomes for the most vulnerable in society. Smart & Fair is working to ensure the UK’s low carbon transition is built on principles of justice and equality and I’m thrilled to be part of this programme.”

Smart & Fair is CSE’s ground-breaking research programme exploring social justice in the future energy system. The energy system is changing. It needs to become smart to get to net zero carbon emissions.  And it needs to do so in a way which is fair to maintain public support for change. But can these two vital outcomes be achieved together in our future energy market? Smart & Fair is exploring both how they could co-exist and what needs to be done to ensure they do.

Phase 2 of the programme kicked off last year. It involves a number of new projects to generate new insights, shape policy guidance, facilitate stakeholder engagement and contribute evidence for advocacy work.

CSE is developing the Smart & Fair Energy Choices Tool to be used by energy advisors in England, Scotland and Wales. It will help advise clients about new offers and help them navigate the complexities of the emerging smart energy market.

This will be backed by a Retail Market Monitoring programme that will collate the latest information on smart energy offers, products and services in a central database. Importantly, this will include the conditions that consumers must be able to fulfil to access any particular service or product – such as digital skills, ability to be flexible and shift energy use, availability of off-street parking and private EV charging, etc.

More Smart & Fair project updates will follow soon as Charlotte gets stuck into her new role.