MITEI’s Future Energy Systems Center kicks off projects to address data center energy demand, long-duration energy storage, energy affordability, and more

The MIT Energy Initiative’s (MITEI) Future Energy Systems Center will fund new energy projects that will explore topics ranging from data center load models and molten salt batteries to carbon utilization and the design of electricity rates. The eight projects selected will receive a combined total of $1.5 million in funding.

Since its founding in 2021, the Center has supported a total of 79 projects. Those projects have generated 47 peer reviewed papers and influenced the trajectory of many next-state research projects. Drawing from analyses across traditional energy-related disciplines and cross-disciplinary fields alike, the Center, MITEI’s industry research consortium, provides insight into the technology, policy, and economics behind our transitioning energy systems.

This was the Center’s ninth round of project selections. Projects are selected twice a year through Center member company nominations and endorsed by a Steering Committee of MIT faculty based on potential impact, member company priorities, and balancing the Center’s portfolio. MITEI hosted kick-off meetings for each of these projects at the Center’s Fall 2026 workshop in September. 

Brief descriptions of each of the new projects follow.

Carbon border adjustment mechanism and marginal cost of abatement

A change in Europe’s carbon pricing policy where importers are charged for the carbon emitted when making steel, cement, aluminum, and fertilizer greatly impacts the economies of countries with large exports in these industries. This project is focused on:

• Measuring, plant by plant, what it would cost Egypt's steel, cement, aluminum, and fertilizer producers to cut emissions, and how much they could cut at each price, using an approach that could be applied to other countries.
• Projecting how carbon pricing, whether applied at home or at Europe's border, would shift production, emissions, prices, and government revenue across those industries.
• Building a method other countries can reuse, with early outreach in Morocco, and identifying the cost thresholds where new technology would unlock the largest emissions reductions.

PI: Catherine Wolfram, professor of energy economics

China’s energy transition

China is the world’s largest energy producer, consumer, greenhouse gas emitter, and, increasingly, manufacturer of clean energy technologies. This gives the country significant influence over global energy markets, technology supply chains, and the pace of decarbonization worldwide. This project is focused on:

• Producing an expert-informed stock-take of China's energy and climate trajectory, including simultaneous coal and renewable expansion, new climate commitments, and emissions outlook, to provide decision makers with an objective, evidence-based foundation. 
• Assessing China's industrial policies, clean technology dominance, and use of trade instruments, including how critical mineral export restrictions affect global supply chains, technology costs, and competitiveness for energy companies worldwide. 
• Identifying realistic U.S. policy pathways—from supply chain diversification to targeted engagement—that safeguard energy security and market access while advancing decarbonization.

PIs: Michael Mehling, deputy director at the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR), and Joshua Hodge, executive director at MIT CEEPR

Data center load model

To support the rapid growth of AI data centers and their associated electricity demand—which are not well represented in conventional grid studies—it is crucial to develop data center load models across operational and planning time scales. This project is focused on: 

• Developing operational load models for AI training and inference that capture baseload, variability, ramping, and flexibility. At faster time scales, the project will study how workload events propagate through data center electrical infrastructure to the point of common coupling, and whether such events can be detected and estimated from grid-side measurements.
• Developing multi-year data center demand scenarios that account for growth in AI computing, the training/inference mix, hardware efficiency, facility size and location, and centralized versus distributed inference. These scenarios will be compared with existing public projections of data center demand.
• Evaluating the impact of these different data center load models and growth scenarios on grid operations and planning. Applications will include reliability, ramping, demand response, interconnection, and GenX-based capacity expansion, with particular attention to how workload mix and location affect generation and network requirements.

PIs: Deep Deka, principal research scientist at MITEI, and Sungho Shin, assistant professor of chemical engineering

Energy affordability 

With electricity bills outpacing inflation across much of the United States, especially with the surge of electricity demand from data centers, renewable portfolio standards (RPS) can help states and utilities keep energy both clean and affordable as they carry out clean energy policies. This project is focused on: 

• Tracing how the design of electricity rates—and the way grid and clean energy costs are recovered—shape household electricity prices, using detailed utility-level records of spending, revenues, and sales by customer type. 
• Quantifying how surging electricity demand, especially from data centers, drives new utility investment and shifts costs across customer groups, and identifying rate structures that protect household affordability. 
• Developing best-practice guidance on how states implement RPS and clean energy standards, compensate rooftop solar, and design electricity rates so that expanding clean power consistently lowers prices and utility costs.

PI: Christopher Knittel, associate dean of climate and sustainability and professor of energy economics 

Geo-CO₂ to fuels 

Using naturally reactive iron-bearing rocks underground to help convert captured carbon into useful materials could reduce costs and carbon impacts, and compete with other carbon-to-fuel options, which currently require a significant amount of clean energy and equipment. This project is focused on: 

• Building a practical model that connects underground carbon conversion, surface product recovery, project cost, and carbon impact.
• Comparing multiple fuel and chemical products to identify which options offer the strongest economic and emissions benefits under realistic conditions.
• Defining the rock, fluid, operating, and market conditions needed for this approach to compete with other carbon-to-fuel technologies.

PI: Iwnetim Abate, assistant professor of materials science and engineering

Molten sodium battery 

Molten-salt batteries show promising performance and projected low costs, but their ability to serve as large-scale stationary energy storage still needs to be evaluated in comparison to other long-duration energy storage technologies. This project is focused on: 

• Evaluating the techno-economic competitiveness of the novel molten-sodium battery for long-duration stationary energy storage. 
• Identifying the system sizes, storage durations, and market segments where the technology can compete with or outperform existing and emerging energy storage technologies. 
• Assessing system cost, grid value, and supply-chain considerations for large-scale deployment. 

PI: Asegun Henry, professor of mechanical engineering 

Quantification of nuclear 

Dispatchable, carbon-free electricity sources are crucial to achieving a net-zero energy system, leading to growing interest in nuclear energy, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), and geothermal energy. This project builds on a past Center project’s evaluation of these technologies to focus on: 

• Conducting bottom-up cost and performance assessments of integrating nuclear energy with chemical facilities and data centers behind the meter. 
• Leveraging existing Center projects on carbon capture and sequestration and geothermal energy to develop detailed bottom-up cost estimates for comparison with nuclear.
• Providing a clear assessment, based on cost and risk, of whether proposed nuclear fission reactor concepts can compete with comparable low-carbon technologies. 

PI: Koroush Shirvan,associate professor of nuclear science and engineering

Using long-duration energy storage to protect the grid

As the electricity grid transitions away from coal and gas, long-duration energy storage (LDES) technologies are increasingly necessary to support intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar during extreme weather events. This project is focused on: 

• Identifying when LDES becomes necessary: the future grid conditions under which short-duration batteries can no longer maintain reliable power during multi-day extreme weather events. 
• Determining the cost, duration, and efficiency thresholds at which LDES becomes cost-effective for meeting the standard reliability target during multi-day extreme weather events, applied to the wind-heavy Midwestern and central U.S. system. 
• Informing policy, investment, and market design—including how capacity markets should value storage duration beyond four to eight hours—so that LDES is properly recognized for its reliability contribution as the energy system evolves. 

PIs: Sungho Shin, assistant professor of chemical engineering, and Deep Deka, principal research scientist at MITEI