Biography:
Roberto Barrella was born in Rome in 1992. He obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Energy Engineering in 2015 and a Master's degree in Energy Engineering in 2018, both from Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza. He developed his Master's thesis at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. In July 2022 he defended his PhD thesis proposing an integrated approach to energy poverty, developed at Comillas Pontifical University. During his PhD, he carried out an international exchange at the Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research (CENSE), Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (Portugal), where he worked with the team coordinating the Energy Poverty Advisory Hub (EPAH). He works as a Research Assistant Professor at the Institute for Research in Technology (IIT). Moreover, he is the coordinator of the Engineering area of the Chair of Energy and Poverty (Comillas-ICAI). His teaching activities are mainly developed in the Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Organisation Departments of Comillas-ICAI.
Areas of interest:
Energy poverty, Residential Energy Demand, Energy Efficiency, HVAC systems, Energy Policy, Just energy transition, Climate change.
Experience:
09/2017 - 03/2018. Erasmus program, Madrid, Spain. He attended three courses and worked on his Master Thesis at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
04/2008 – present. Volunteer, Community of Sant'Egidio. For more than a decade, he has been a volunteer of the Community of Sant'Egidio, which provides services for children, elderly and homeless people. He participated in projects with this association in four different places: at an elderly home, at a children’s home, at Largo Passamonti in Rome and in Blantyre, Malawi.
09/2000 - 09/2012. Boy’s Scout, Rome, Italy. In 12 years of Scouting, he has developed skills of adaptation and resolution of concrete problems. Outstanding experiences: hiking in Italy, volunteering in Lourdes, participating in the World Youth Day (WYD) in Madrid, and kayaking from Treviso to Venice.
Skills:
Proficiency in Microsoft Office tools (Word, Excel, Powerpoint), advanced in EES and R, basic knowledge of Matlab, Mathcad, AutoCAD, Ecotect, Radiance, Climate Consultant.
Italian (Native), Spanish (Proficiency), English (Advanced), Portuguese (Basic).
Energy demand modeling.
Energy poverty indicators’ analysis.
HVAC systems’ feasibility analysis.
Thermodynamics and Fluid dynamics lab research and knowledge.
Basic electrical lab knowledge.
Designing, construction and testing of energy conversion systems.
Designing of sustainable buildings.
Current research interests:
Bottom-up models of HVAC demand in the residential sector.
Bottom-up models for domestic electricity consumption.
Study of future scenarios of household energy demand and expenditure.
Analysis of the techno-economic feasibility of heat pumps in the residential sector.
Strategies for energy retrofitting of buildings: active and passive measures.Critical review of energy poverty indicators.
Analysis and proposal of measures to combat energy poverty in Europe.
Just green transition.
Application of XAI to energy poverty studies.
JCR: 3,400 Q1 (2023) - SJR: 0,617 Q1 (2023) Accepted for publication. 
Barrella, R., Mora Rosado, S., Romero, J.C., The 2022 energy and inflationary crises: Data, experiences and opinions of Spanish energy vulnerable households. Energy Research & Social Science. Vol. 121, pp. 103961-1 - 103961-17, March 2025. [Online: February 2025]
JCR: 6,900 Q1 (2023) - SJR: 2,320 Q1 (2023) 
Herding, L., Pérez-Bravo, M., Barrella, R., Cossent, R., Rivier, M., Large-scale estimation of electricity distribution grid reinforcement requirements for the energy transition – A 2030 Spanish case study. Energy Reports. Vol. 12, pp. 5432 - 5444, December 2024. [Online: November 2024]
JCR: 4,700 Q2 (2023) - SJR: 1,072 Q2 (2023) Barrella, R., Linares, J.I., Romero, J.C., Arenas, E.M., Evaluating the impact of energy efficiency strategies on households’ energy affordability: a Spanish case study. Energy and Buildings. Vol. 295, pp. 113289-1 - 113289-13, September 2023. [Online: June 2023]
JCR: 6,600 Q1 (2023); - SJR: 1,632 Q1 (2023); Barrella, R., Romero, J.C., Mariño, L., Proposing a novel minimum income standard approach to energy poverty assessment: a European case study. Sustainability. Vol. 14, nº. 23, pp. 15526-1 - 15526-21, December 2022. [Online: November 2022]
JCR: 3,900 Q2 (2022); 3,300 Q2 (2023) - SJR: 0,664 Q1 (2022); 0,672 Q1 (2023) Barrella, R., Romero, J.C., Linares, J.I., Arenas, E.M., Asín, M., Centeno, E., The dark side of energy poverty: who is underconsuming in Spain and why?. Energy Research & Social Science. Vol. 86, pp. 102428-1 - 102428-24, April 2022. [Online: December 2021]
JCR: 6,700 Q1 (2022); 6,900 Q1 (2023) - SJR: 2,171 Q1 (2022); 2,320 Q1 (2023) Barrella, R., Linares, J.I., Romero, J.C., Arenas, E.M., Centeno, E., Does cash money solve energy poverty? Assessing the impact of household heating allowances in Spain. Energy Research & Social Science. Vol. 80, pp. 102216-1 - 102216-18, October 2021. [Online: August 2021]
JCR: 8,514 Q1 (2021); 6,900 Q1 (2023) - SJR: 2,551 Q1 (2021); 2,320 Q1 (2023) Castaño-Rosa, R., Barrella, R., Sánchez-Guevara, C., Barbosa, R., Kyprianou, I., Paschalidou, E.G., Thomaidis, N.S., Dokupilová, D., Gouveia, J.P., Kádár, J., Hamed, T.A., Palma, P., Cooling degree models and future energy demand in the residential sector. A seven-country case study. Sustainability. Vol. 13, nº. 5, pp. 2987-1 - 2987-25, March 2021. [Online: March 2021]
JCR: 3,889 Q2 (2021); 3,300 Q2 (2023) - SJR: 0,664 Q1 (2021); 0,672 Q1 (2023) Barrella, R., Priego, I., Linares, J.I., Arenas, E.M., Romero, J.C., Centeno, E., Feasibility study of a centralised electrically driven air source heat pump water heater to face energy poverty in block dwellings in Madrid (Spain). Energies. Vol. 13, nº. 11, pp. 2723-1 - 2723-23, June 2020. [Online: May 2020]
JCR: 3,004 Q3 (2020); 3,000 Q3 (2023) - SJR: 0,598 Q2 (2020); 0,651 Q1 (2023) 
