Rate My Professor Michael Grubb

Professor Michael Grubb is Professor of Energy and Climate Change at University College London, within the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources and the Institute for Sustainable Resources, where he serves as Deputy Director. He earned his PhD from the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge between 1982 and 1986. His research focuses on energy systems, policy responses to climate change, the economics of energy innovation, electricity markets, and net zero market design. Grubb teaches a core module on the economics and policy of energy and the environment in UCL's Masters programme. Since 2024, he has directed the UCL Centre for Net Zero Market Design.

Grubb's distinguished career integrates academic research with policy implementation. In the 1990s, he led the Energy and Environmental Programme at Chatham House. He subsequently held research positions at Imperial College London in engineering and the environment, and at the University of Cambridge in economics. From 2000 to 2010, he was Chief Economist at the UK Carbon Trust. He joined UCL part-time in 2014 while serving as Senior Advisor at Ofgem, the UK energy regulator, until 2016. In 2017, he transitioned to full-time at UCL. From 2016 to 2019, he chaired the UK government's independent Panel of Technical Experts on Electricity Market Reform. Notable publications include the book Planetary Economics: Energy, Climate Change and the Three Domains of Sustainable Development (2014, Routledge, co-authored with Jean-Charles Hourcade and Karsten Neuhoff), which won the International Association for Energy Economics Marcel Boiteux Best International Energy Economics Book Award in 2021. Other key works encompass induced innovation in energy technologies and systems (2021, Environmental Research Letters) and contributions to high-impact papers such as Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health (The Lancet, 2015). Grubb has shaped policy through evidence to UK parliamentary committees, contributions to UCL's COP teams, and advisory roles on energy reform and decarbonisation.