Ognen Stojanovski

Ognen Stojanovski has been affiliated with PESD since 2005 (while still a student at Stanford Law School) and returned to the program full-time in 2013. He is charged with project management and detailed implementation of PESD’s research platform on low-income energy services, which studies the kinds of economic and institutional arrangements that can allow delivery of modern energy services to the poor at scale and in a durable way (as opposed to whether a specific energy technology can be made to work on a one-off basis).

His current research focuses on measuring and quantifying the economic and social welfare impacts of solar PV products in developing countries (especially East Africa), as well as identifying innovations in the off-grid solar industry that can improve business performance and maximize customer benefits. In this role, Stojanovski has developed and implemented an innovative, highly-visual method of administering surveys on tablet computers that appears to yield better respondent engagement and more accurate data than traditional paper methods (or other character-based computer surveys, which generally provide only limited visual cues). Key data captured by such surveys is a comprehensive picture of the non-cooking energy use and spending patterns of households (including solar and all other lighting and electricity options).

Stojanovski is leading several randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the African solar PV space, including on the economic effects of “energy kiosks,” the educational impacts of solar lanterns, and the business and end-user impacts of improved customer support for solar home systems. He has also been responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with both commercial and research partners that have enabled PESD to perform effective research in these regions.

Stojanovski’s other primary area of research is the Mexican energy sector. During the summer of 2015, he led a group of Stanford students in conducting an RCT in Puebla, Mexico, to explore how households use electricity and test whether information about electricity pricing and conservation leads to changes in behavior. This research was an extension of a new course for undergraduates at Stanford: Econ 121, “Social Science Field Research Methods,” which Stojanovski developed and taught in Spring2015 (along with Frank Wolak and Mark Thurber). The course teaches students the theoretical fundamentals and practical aspects of conducting field research in a rigorous manner. Stojanovski was also part of PESD's research on national oil companies and authored the chapter about Pemex and the Mexican oil sector in the book Oil and Governance: State-owned Enterprises and the World Energy Supply.

Stojanovski's background is in law and engineering, and he is keenly interested in the intersection of energy and the developing world. He spent the four years between 2007 and 2011 working, living, and traveling through over 20 emerging economies in sub-Saharan Africa, central and Eastern Europe, and South America.

Stojanovski received his J.D. from Stanford (with distinction) and also holds masters and bachelors degrees from UC Berkeley in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (with highest honors). He is an active member of the State Bar of California and has advised clients on a wide range of corporate legal issues. He currently serves as the manager of a Bay Area start-up.