Barbara is writing a memoir. Hear when it’s out

Dr. Barbara C. Farhar

Sustainable Energy Sociologist

About Barbara

Dr. Barbara Farhar, 2014

For five decades, Dr. Farhar was a pioneer in renewable and sustainable energy policy, directing research on how technology and society interact and how innovations spread. As a Senior Policy Analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), she gained national recognition for her work on the human dimensions of energy efficiency and renewable energy. She is internationally recognized as an expert on the use and adoption of new energy technologies.

As interest in alternative energy expanded worldwide, her research helped builders, public utilities, and consumers make smart energy choices. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses, she empowered informed individual choice and helped communities develop smart and sustainable energy policies and practices.

As principal investigator on a multiyear comparative case study of a new development of high performance homes (built to save 30 to 50 percent of their energy use over conventionally built homes) Farhar found that owners became increasingly satisfied with their energy-efficient products as in-home displays enabled them to track their (decreased) energy consumption and related utility savings. The findings helped reshape the conventional wisdom about consumer interest in and market values of homes with energy-saving features.

Retired now, Dr. Farhar was a senior research associate at CU’s Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute. She has produced more than 240 publications and papers on the relevance of behavioral analysis to energy policy, strategic planning for federal research, public opinion about energy and environmental policy, energy efficiency R&D planning, and technology transfer. She has been published in Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Science. She has served on the board of the Colorado Renewable Energy Society and the American Solar Energy Society.

A life in research

  1. 1970sWeather modification and society

    At the University of Colorado's Institute of Behavioral Science she studied how communities respond to cloud seeding and hail suppression, including the South Dakota controversy and a national technology assessment. Her Ph.D. in sociology (University of Colorado, 1975) analysed weather modification in the United States. In 1978 she published “Hail Suppression and Society” in Science.

  2. 1979Solar Energy Research Institute

    She joined SERI, later the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, with a review of hundreds of studies of public opinion about energy. America's Solar Potential: A National Consumer Study followed in 1982.

  3. 1990sWhat the public wants from energy

    As a Senior Policy Analyst at NREL she tracked public opinion on energy and the environment, measured what customers would pay for renewable electricity, and helped put gender on the international energy agenda, with a plenary address at the World Renewable Energy Congress in Florence in 1998.

  4. 2000sZero-energy homes

    A multiyear comparative case study of high-performance homes in San Diego showed owners growing more satisfied as in-home displays let them watch their energy use fall. Her 2008 Solar Today article on the zero-energy home market won an APEX Award for Publication Excellence.

  5. 2009 to 2012University of Colorado

    As a senior research associate at CU's Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute she studied household views of Boulder's SmartGridCity and led a field study of plug-in hybrid cars. She helped organize the Energy and Gender-Equitable Development section of the World Renewable Energy Congress in Abu Dhabi in 2010.

  6. 2014 to 2016Energy, gender and poverty

    “Energy and Gender,” with Beth Osnes and Elizabeth A. Lowry, appeared in Energy Poverty from Oxford University Press, and the plug-in hybrid study in Energy Policy.

  7. TodayWriter

    She proposed and compiled Creative Crones (2019), an anthology of life stories by sixteen women writers at Frasier, and is writing a memoir. About the book

Recognition

  • Solar Pioneer Award, World Renewable Energy Congress IX, Florence, Italy, 2006, for her work on the human dimensions of energy efficiency and renewable energy.
  • Outstanding Woman of Jefferson County, named by the West Chamber, 2006.
  • APEX Award for Publication Excellence, 2008, for “Advancing a Market for Zero-Energy Homes” in Solar Today.
  • Chair of the Technical Committee on Gender-Equitable Development, World Renewable Energy Congress X, Glasgow, 2008.
  • Board member of the Colorado Renewable Energy Society and the American Solar Energy Society.

Her papers

Barbara's papers are preserved at Colorado State University Libraries Archives & Special Collections in Fort Collins, as part of its Water Resources Archive. The collection spans 1960 to 2015 and holds 23 cartons of research papers, publications and presentations on weather modification, sustainable energy, gender and energy, and earthquake prediction.

View the collection at CSU

Find her work