Behnam Zakeri
Senior Research Scholar
Integrated Assessment and Climate Change Research Group
Energy, Climate, and Environment Program
Biography
Behnam Zakeri first joined IIASA in 2017 and is currently a senior research scholar in the Energy, Climate, and Environment (ECE) Program. He is also an assistant professor and the deputy head of the Institute for Data, Energy, and Sustainability (IDEaS) at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) and a visiting lecturer at the Technical University of Vienna (TU Wien), where he teaches the course on Global Energy Transitions and Climate Policy. He holds a PhD in energy systems analysis from Aalto University, Finland.Zakeri's research revolves around the modeling and analysis of energy transitions and the broader impact of such transitions on the Sustainable Development Goals. He investigates market mechanisms, systems designs, emerging technologies, and policies that enable a low-carbon energy system. He is interested in systems integration of renewable energy, flexibility solutions such as energy storage, digitalization and decentralization of energy, and international energy markets.
At IIASA, he is involved in the modeling and study of energy pathways and their broader economic and environmental impacts in different regions of the world. He acted as the alternate leader of Sustainable Energy as part of the IIASA International Science Council (ISC) initiative on Transformations within Reach. He established and was the co-investigator of the research theme Modeling for National Transformations in the ECE program.
Together with his coauthors, his research on the value of energy storage has led to several best paper awards including one from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 11th International Conference on European Energy Markets (2014) and another from the 9th International Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water, and Environment Systems (2014). His work on the economics of energy storage systems has been among the most cited articles in the journal Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews.
Last update: 21 AUG 2024
Publications
Hunt, J. , Nascimento, A., Zakeri, B. , Ilyas, A., Ramos, D.S., Kuriqi, A., Tolmasquim, M.T., de Freitas, M.A.V., Brandão, R., & Wada, Y. (2025). Optimizing hydropower generation with reservoir level management in humid regions. Energy Reports 13 856-864. 10.1016/j.egyr.2024.12.064.
Zakeri, B. (2024). Digitalization for Resilient and Sustainable Energy Transitions. Energies 17 (21) p. 5434. 10.3390/en17215434.
Hunt, J. , Nascimento, A., Romero, O.J., Zakeri, B. , Jurasz, J., Dąbek, P.B., Strzyżewski, T., Đurin, B., Leal Filho, W., Freitas, M.A.V., & Wada, Y. (2024). Hydrogen storage with gravel and pipes in lakes and reservoirs. Nature Communications 15 (1) e7723. 10.1038/s41467-024-52237-1.
Sarmiento, L., Emmerling, J., Pietzcker, R., Daioglou, V., Dalla Longa, F., Dekker, M.M., Drouet, L., Fattahi, A., Fragkos, P., Henke, H.T.J., Fricko, O. , Göke, L., Krey, V. , Lochner, E., Luderer, G., Macaluso, N., O'Keefe, K.T.V., Kennedy, K.M., Iyer, G., Rodrigues, R., Stewart, E., Usher, W., van der Zwaan, B., van Vuuren, D., Zisarou, E., & Zakeri, B. (2024). Comparing net zero pathways across the Atlantic A model inter-comparison exercise between the Energy Modeling Forum 37 and the European Climate and Energy Modeling Forum. Energy and Climate Change 5 e100144. 10.1016/j.egycc.2024.100144.
Joshi, S., Zakeri, B. , Mittal, S., Mastrucci, A. , Holloway, P., Krey, V. , Shukla, P.R., O’Gallachoir, B., & Glynn, J. (2024). Global high-resolution growth projections dataset for rooftop area consistent with the shared socioeconomic pathways, 2020–2050. Scientific Data 11 (1) 10.1038/s41597-024-03378-x.