News and events

Jessica Bekker’s research and industry experience has focused on supporting energy transitions in Indigenous communities since her engineering co-op with the T’Sou-ke Nation in 2009. She will present her master’s thesis work, which developed technical and economic modelling tools to explore the integration of solar, wave, and hydro energy systems.

The annual IESVic group photo 2025. Celebrating another year of collaboration and breakthroughs at IESVic! Grateful for this incredible team advancing integrated energy solutions for a sustainable future.

Open Insights is a project advancing accessible and transparent modeling for Canadians to support policy development, advocacy, and public discussion. The session introduces the project’s open-source energy and economy models, workflows, and visualization tools, showing how they enable rapid, repeatable pathway assessments and address Canada’s net-zero transition challenges.

Time plays a key role in low-carbon transitions, shaping debates around deadlines, speed, and urgency. Bregje van Veelen’s research investigates how communities and stakeholders navigate these changes, the influence of the past, and what happens when desired futures do not arrive. She shows that diversifying our understanding of the past and seeing time as political offers a powerful lens for analysing low-carbon transitions.

With stable climates and global ecosystems in peril, Malthus’ proverbial predicament is as important as ever: How do we sustain a growing population within the carrying capacity of the Earth? Attempting to answer this question, reveals an enigma. The more we succeed in overcoming Malthusian struggle, the more it comes back to bite us.

Thank you to the hardworking teams at the Institute for Integrated Energy Systems and the Energy Modelling Hub for organizing a successful symposium. View the symposium agenda and full list of recordings.

Every policy decision today shapes our path to a sustainable future. But how do we ensure we're making the right choices? That's where Clean Prosperity Foundation steps in. The Canadian climate policy organization that supports environmental economic research is injecting $2.5 million into expanding energy modelling work at the University of Victoria. The project—named Open Insights—combines innovative modelling techniques with broad engagement to help guide decision-making during Canada’s sustainable energy system transition. The investment will fund a team of post-doctoral research analysts, graduate students and software developers to build a sophisticated suite of data sources, models and visualizations.

The University of Victoria (UVic) is welcoming investments to support Canadian research and innovation detailed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a campus visit on Friday that included meeting faculty and students whose research is transforming the lives of Canadians every day.

Issues addressed include: Impact of public support for future local Marine Renewable Energy development; Impact of ‘trust’ on support for local Marine Renewable Energy developments; Power dynamics within small island communities, the impact on local decision making and the transition to a low-carbon energy system; Recommendations for community engagement in Marine Renewable Energy decision-making.

Dr. Robertson will provide an overview of the need to decarbonize our global and US energy sector, explain why wave and offshore wind energy has an important role to play in this transition, and why Oregon/OSU is ideally placed to lead this effort.

An $83.6-million investment from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund will allow IESVic to lead a national, multi-partner initiative that will help get Canada to net zero – one community at a time.