Staff Profile

I am a human geographer with four interconnecting areas of research interest:

1. Socio-Technical Innovation: My research has focused on the economic, social and ethical questions around innovations in sustainable energy and infrastructure networks.
2. Everyday life: Central to my research is an ongoing interest in understanding what shapes everyday habits and practices, and their implications.
   
3. Economic Geographies: I am interested in multi-scalar and spatially connective economies of places, systems and practices. 
4. Integration of qualitative, quantitative and spatial data: I like the challenge of working with diverse data and research approaches and see this as central to my work as a researcher and teacher. 

I am the Degree Programme Director for our Ba and Bsc Geography degrees and for our Bsc Physical Geography degree here at Newcastle.

I also contribute to the following modules in human geography:

• GEO2099: Economic Geography
• GEO3158: Sustainable Production and Consumption
• GEO8017 Human Geography: Concepts in Action
• GEO8016 Philosophies in Human Geography

My research in geography sits at the interfaces between social and technical disciplines, between qualitative and quantitative research approaches and between academics and stakeholders.

My research has recently focused on:

1. Affordable Warmth - How can renewable and sustainable energy be affordable?
2. Localisations - is the world deglobalising? If so, even if only partially, how can we understand those processes, the forces driving them and their consequences for people?
3. Energy Systems - how can we understand and influence the development and re-design of sustainable energy infrastructures?
4. Placing and Planning Practices - why do we do what we do where we do it?

I am keen to meet students and researchers at any career stage to develop new research.

• Articles

  • Copeland C, Turner B, Powells G, Wilson K. In search of complementarity: Insights from an exercise in quantifying qualitative energy futures. Energies 2022, 15(15), 5340.
  • Herbert J, Powells G. Contested geographies of localization(s): towards open-locales. Globalizations 2023, 20(4), 548-563.
  • Scott M, Powells G. Towards a new social science research agenda for hydrogen transitions: Social practices, energy justice, and place attachment. Energy Research & Social Science 2020, 61, 101346.
  • Lovell H, Powells G. Smart Grid Knowledges and the State. Area 2020, 52(3), 583-590.
  • Scott M, Powells G. Sensing hydrogen transitions in homes through social practices: cooking, heating, and the decomposition of demand. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 2020, 45(7), 3870-3882.
  • Powells G, Fell M. Flexibility capital and flexibility justice in smart energy systems. Energy Research & Social Science 2019, 54, 56-59.
  • Bulkeley H, Powells G, Bell S. Smart Grids and the Constitution of Solar Electricity Conduct. Environment and Planning: A 2016, 48(1), 7-23.
  • Powells G, Bell S, Judson E, Lyon S, Wardle R, Capova K, Bulkeley H. Fostering active network management through SMEs practices. Energy Efficiency 2016, 9(3), 591-604.
  • Judson EP, Bell S, Bulkeley H, Powells G, Lyon S. The co-construction of energy provision and everyday practice: integrating heat pumps in social housing in England. Science & Technology Studies 2015, 28(3), 26-53.
  • Bell S, Judson E, Bulkeley H, Powells G, Capova K, Lynch D. Sociality and electricity: the influence of household dynamics on everyday consumption. Energy Research & Social Science 2015, 9, 98-106.
  • Powells G, Bulkeley H, Bell S, Judson E. Peak electricity demand and the flexibility of everyday life. Geoforum 2014, 55, 43-52.
  • Powells G. The Political Economy of Sustainable Energy – By Catherine Mitchell. Geographical Journal 2009, 175(4), 315-316.
  • Powells G. Complexity, entanglement, and overflow in the new carbon economy: the case of the UK’s Energy Efficiency Commitment. Environment and Planning A 2009, 41(10), 2342 – 2356.

• Book Chapters

  • Powells G, Blake L. Urban Science Networks and Local Economy: The Case of Newcastle Upon Tyne. In: Evans, J; Karvonen, A; Raven, R, ed. The Experimental City. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2016, pp.137-149.
  • Powells G, Bulkeley H, McLean A. Geographies of Smart Urban Power. In: Marvin, S; Luque-Ayala, A; McFarlane, C, ed. Smart Urbanism: Utopian Vision or False Dawn?. London: Routledge, 2016, pp.125-144.
  • Bulkeley H, Powells G, Bell S, Lyon S. Smart grids and the governing of energy use: reconfiguring practices?. In: Strengers, Y.; Maller, C, ed. Social Practices, Intervention and Sustainability: Beyond behaviour change. Abingdon: Routledge, 2014, pp.112-126.
  • Smith SJ, Searle B, Powells G. Introduction. In: Smith, SJ; Searle, B, ed. The Blackwell Companion to the Economics of Housing: The Housing Wealth of Nations. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
  • Powells G. Housing Dynamics: Environmental Aspects. In: Smith, SJ, ed. International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home. San Diego: Elsevier, 2010, pp.429-435.

• Edited Book

  • Hopkins P, Newcastle Social Geographies Collective, Pain R, Shaw R, Gao Q, Bonnett A, Jones C, Richardson M, Rzedzian S, Benwell MC, Lin W, McAreavey R, Stenning A, Blazek M, Pande R, Najib K, Finlay R, Nayak A, Ridley G, Mearns G, Bonner-Thompson C, McLaughlin J, Boussalem A, Iqbal N, Heslop J, Jarvis H, Burrows R, Bambra C, Copeland A, Tate S, Campbell E, Thompson M, James A, Raynor R, Cunningham N, Powells G, Herbert J, Hocknell S, ed. Social Geographies: An Introduction. London, UK: Rowman and Littlefield, 2021.

• Report

  • Scott M, Powells G. Blended Hydrogen: The UK Public's Perspective. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Newcastle University, 2019.