Background: MITEI Overview and Mission

Since its inception in late 2006, the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) has become MIT’s hub for energy research, education, and outreach. Through these three pillars, MITEI plays a catalytic role in accelerating responses to the many challenges facing our global energy system. MITEI’s mission is to develop low- and no-carbon solutions to efficiently, affordably, and sustainably meet global energy needs while minimizing environmental impacts, dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and mitigating climate change.

To advance this mission, MITEI brings together researchers from across the Institute and facilitates collaborations with industry and government. MITEI and its member companies and organizations support hundreds of research projects across the Institute, including those awarded through the MITEI Seed Fund Program for innovative early-stage energy research projects.

As a vital component of MIT’s Plan for Action on Climate Change and MITEI’s research program, the Low-Carbon Energy Centers present opportunities for faculty, students, industry, and government to advance research and development in key technology areas and energy subsector systems for curbing climate change, from solar energy to electric power systems, mobility, and other areas.

The Initiative also delivers comprehensive analyses for thought leaders, policy makers, and regulators, such as the “Future of” series of reports. The most recent, The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World, was published in September 2018 with the Nuclear Science and Engineering Department. A new study, The Future of Storage, is now underway and focuses on the role of energy storage in making electricity systems cleaner, more efficient, and more affordable. Another series of reports examines rapidly changing segments of the energy sector; the 2019 Insights into Future Mobility report, the product of the multi-year Mobility of the Future study, explores scenarios for carbon reductions within the personal mobility segment of the transportation sector. The other report in this series, Utility of the Future (2016) provides guidance to policy makers, regulators, and industry on emerging issues in the electric power sector, using a neutral framework within which to evaluate the economic, regulatory, and technological impacts of the ongoing evolution of the power sector worldwide.

MITEI leads Institute energy education efforts and has engaged thousands of undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students, incorporating bringing current research developments and results into teaching and facilitating applied learning experiences for students through sponsored research opportunities and other programs. These programs and experiences prepare the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and policy makers to collaborate on solutions to global energy challenges. Learning opportunities include the Energy Studies Minor, Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program in energy, short modules during the Independent Activities Period, an energy-focused first-year pre-orientation program, the graduate Society of Energy Fellows, and a new series of online energy classes to reach a global audience. Faculty associated with MITEI help shape energy education at both the undergraduate and graduate levels by teaching, advising, and developing new curricula.

MITEI’s Tata Center for Technology and Design has provided extensive support to Master’s and PhD students through fellowships sponsored by the Tata Trusts. Tata Fellows have worked throughout India, as well as in Nepal, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela, traveling at least twice a year to immerse themselves in the social, political, and economic aspects of their research in the developing world. Their experiences abroad inform their ongoing research with the goal of catalyzing positive social impact in the form of policy support and affordable products and services. Through support for these students, and through thoughtfully crafted research projects in the fields of energy, water, environment, housing, health, and agriculture, the Tata Center advances its mission of bringing technical talent and experience to bear on the challenges of the developing world.

MITEI’s outreach efforts foster dialogue within the research community; across the academic, industry, and government sectors; and provide the public with context on current energy issues. In addition to informing public policy through research reports, MITEI facilitates this exchange of information by hosting and sponsoring events on campus and by supporting faculty and staff participation in external events. The MITEI communications team also highlights the work of the MIT energy community across print and digital platforms, such as Energy Futures magazine, MITEI’s website, podcasts, and social media, as well as through media outreach.

Progress since the 2015 MIT Plan for Action on Climate Change

In the nearly five years since MIT’s Plan for Action on Climate Change was announced, MITEI has been actively implementing elements of the plan.

The following sections provide a selection of examples of MITEI research, education, outreach, and engagement efforts since the launch of the climate plan in October 2015 through the end of June 2020; more examples can be found on MITEI’s website.

Research

MITEI’s research portfolio includes projects aimed at deep decarbonization of four major energy sectors—power, transportation, industry, and buildings—to confront climate change, mitigate environmental issues associated with the energy sector, and expand access to affordable, clean energy. Examples of MITEI research projects and progress since the announcement of the climate plan include:

Low-Carbon Energy Centers: First announced in the 2015 MIT climate plan, the Centers are dedicated to tackling the most pressing energy challenges related to climate change from key technological and economic perspectives (see related Boston Globe feature from the launch of the Centers). They encompass areas of research that were already underway through MITEI prior to the climate plan, and the desire to create a locus for more research in these areas. Each of the Centers is led by MIT faculty co-directors and has a distinct focus. The Center model enables smaller companies along the energy value chain to collaborate with MITEI, providing financial support and industry perspectives to help advance these technology areas. In addition, by highlighting MITEI’s commitment and capabilities in these important areas for climate change mitigation, we have encouraged more investment in this research both through the Centers and through existing memberships in MITEI. As of the end of FY2020, twenty-five total new and current MITEI members have committed support for the Centers—with some members supporting multiple Centers. Here is a sample of members and Center activities—some additional Center-funded projects are described in later project examples.

• In fall 2019, MITEI launched a new Low-Carbon Energy Center for Mobility Systems, which builds on the foundation of the Mobility of the Future study and corresponding report, Insights into Future Mobility (2019, MITEI). The Center has recently funded its second set of projects to advance decarbonization of the transportation system, which include:
  • The impacts of Covid-19 on urban mobility (Jinhua Zhao, Urban Studies and Planning)
  • The economics of electric vehicle charging (Jing Li, MIT Sloan School of Management)
  • Cost reduction and emissions savings strategies for hydrogen mobility systems (Jessika Trancik, IDSS)
  • Analysis of forms of hydrogen for use in transportation (Emre Gençer and Dharik Mallapragada, MITEI; Yang Shao-Horn, Materials Science and Engineering)
• The first set of projects, funded in 2019, included:
  • Long-haul freight on highways: Techno-economic assessment of options for powertrains and fuels (William Green, Chemical Engineering)
  • Design, planning, and operation of highly responsive & sustainable urban last-mile delivery networks (Matthias Winkenbach and Yossi Sheffi, Center for Transportation and Logistics)
  • Can mobility-as-a-service really disrupt the private car ownership model? (David Keith, Sloan; Joanna Moody, MITEI)
  • Price of privacy: Towards the quantification of the value of location data in smart mobility (Jinhua Zhao, Urban Studies and Planning)
• MITEI recently launched a new Low-Carbon Energy Center for Energy in the Developing World that aims to improve people’s lives and combat climate change by guiding the transformation of energy systems, regulatory structures, and business models and informing public policy in developing countries and underserved areas.
• In 2018, IHI, a global engineering, construction, and manufacturing company, signed a three-year membership agreement with MITEI’s Low-Carbon Energy Center for Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS). IHI’s membership in the CCUS Center stems from the company’s focus on developing CCUS technologies to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
• In June 2017, global power company Iberdrola expanded its collaboration with MITEI to become a Sustaining Member, designating $5 million to create the Iberdrola-AVANGRID professorship at MIT, dedicated to research and education in power systems engineering (a search is currently underway), and another $5 million over five years to advance key technologies and policies for reducing the impacts of climate change. As part of its membership, Iberdrola joined MITEI’s Low-Carbon Energy Center for Electric Power Systems, building on the company’s previous sponsorship of the Utility of the Future Through the agreement, Iberdrola also expanded its support of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research and support for sponsored research through the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. To support energy entrepreneurship, the company designated $300,000 for the MIT Sandbox Innovation Fund Program, which connects MIT undergraduate and graduate students with tailored educational experiences and mentoring, and provides students with funding to startup innovative projects or entrepreneurial initiatives.
• ENN Group, one of China’s largest private energy companies, joined MITEI’s Low-Carbon Energy Center for Energy Storage Research in April 2017 to develop scalable energy storage solutions for regional energy systems in China.
• In January 2017, MITEI Founding Member Eni S.p.A. extended its collaboration with MITEI, which included new support for three Low-Carbon Energy Centers: solar; energy storage; and carbon capture, utilization, and storage. Eni renewed its commitment again in 2020.
• Founding Member ExxonMobil expanded its support for MITEI’s research and development of low-carbon technologies in October 2016 and renewed this support in 2019. Specifically, ExxonMobil joined MITEI’s Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Center, one of MITEI’s Low-Carbon Energy Centers.
• National energy provider Exelon joined MITEI as a member in the beginning of 2016 and continued in 2019, supporting a range of research activities through the Low-Carbon Energy Centers, especially for nuclear fission.

---

Major studies and reports: MITEI has convened and supported researchers across the Institute to prepare and publish in-depth analyses of key technologies and sectors, sharing them widely with governmental and industry audiences that have used the reports to inform policy and business decisions. Major reports since 2015 include:

• Insights into Future Mobility (2019): The report explores how individual travel decisions will be shaped by complex interactions between technologies, markets, business models, government policies, and consumer preferences. The culmination of MITEI’s three-year Mobility of the Future study, the report highlights the importance of near-term action to ensure the long-term sustainability of personal mobility. The Mobility Systems Center, a new MITEI Low-Carbon Energy Center, builds on the findings and research network of the study.
• The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World (2018): Led by Jacopo Buongiorno (Nuclear Science and Engineering), a multidisciplinary team of researchers worked over several years to complete the study and companion report—the eighth in MITEI’s “Future of” report series. The report provides an objective assessment of the opportunities and challenges affecting the ability of nuclear energy technologies to meet U.S. and global energy needs in the context of the imperative to dramatically reduce carbon emissions and curb climate change. As with other major MITEI reports, students played an important role in researching and writing the report. (See the Technology Review article on the report.)
• Utility of the Future (2016): The report from the Utility of the Future study, released in December 2016, was the result of a multi-year effort that examined the technology, policy, and business models shaping the evolution of the delivery of electricity services in the U.S., Europe, and other parts of the world. The report recommended proactive reforms to ensure that both distributed and centralized energy resources are integrated efficiently in the shift toward a low-carbon energy future. Developed in collaboration with the Institute for Research in Technology at Comillas Pontifical University (IIT-Comillas), the study has informed research conducted through MITEI’s Low-Carbon Energy Center for Electric Power Systems. (See related article in Vox.)

Research engagement with industry: Since the advent of the climate action plan in 2015, of the 177 PIs who worked on MITEI projects, 129 were funded by traditional energy companies that are MITEI members, for projects that are primarily aimed at decarbonizing the energy sector throughout the supply chain (sources, production, conversion, transmission and distribution, and end use). These include solar, energy storage, nuclear fission, fusion energy, carbon capture, and other areas. About half of this work has taken place through MITEI’s Low-Carbon Energy Centers. The research in MITEI’s portfolio, and the dollars that support it from both traditional energy companies and other MITEI members and donors, is at the beginning of an innovation supply chain that, over time, we expect to yield breakthrough discoveries, technologies, methods, and products that will lead to reduced emissions, net-zero emissions, and ultimately negative emissions—as part of the overall global effort to mitigate climate change. Other MITEI research sponsored by traditional energy companies is related to improving the energy efficiency and reducing environmental impacts of existing technologies and processes.

Startup companies: To date there have been at least three dozen energy-related startups that MITEI has supported at an early stage, including through the Seed Fund, which pools funding from MITEI’s highest-level members (fossil fuel companies and others), and competitively allocates it to promising early-stage research projects. While some startup companies developed out of research supported by MITEI Seed Fund grants, others were founded by individuals who engaged with MITEI in various ways (including UROPs, Energy Studies Minors, Graduate Energy Fellows, and postdocs), and still others received different kinds of MITEI support including mentorship and connections to external funding sources. Here are just a few examples:

• Infinite Cooling, a company founded by Professor Kripa Varanasi (Mechanical Engineering) and his research group, has developed a technology to capture and reuse water evaporating from cooling towers at power plants. The company received early support through MITEI’s Seed Fund and the Tata Center for Technology and Design, and has gone on to secure additional funding. As part of MIT’s commitment to having the campus become a “living lab” of climate innovation, a pilot version of this technology has also been installed at MIT’s Central Utility Plant.
• The MITEI Seed Fund; Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage Low-Carbon Center; and individual MITEI sponsors have supported substantial research in new carbon capture ideas. One outcome of this support is a novel electrochemical cell, developed by Sahag Voskian PhD ’19 and Professor T. Alan Hatton (Chemical Engineering), that can capture and release CO₂with just a small change in voltage. They have founded Verdox, Inc., to demonstrate how the technology can be scaled. Voskian, a former Eni–MIT Energy Fellow, is now co-founder and chief technology officer at Verdox.
• Form Energy, co-founded by Professor Yet-Ming Chiang (Materials Science and Engineering) and William Woodford, a former MITEI Energy Fellow, is developing a new class of ultra-low cost, long duration energy storage systems. The company has received support from The Engine and other sources. Form Energy has just announced its first grid-scale pilot demonstration.
• Khethworks, founded by Katherine Taylor SM ’15, Tata Fellow Kevin Simon, Victor Lesniewski SM ’15, and Professor Amos Winter (Mechanical Engineering), an MIT startup that emerged from the Tata Center and has developed an ultra-efficient irrigation pump powered by a small, portable, and very inexpensive solar generator—optimized to serve the 30 million farmers in India’s vast Gangetic Plain. Taylor is the company’s CEO.
• Changing Environments, a startup co-founded by former MITEI Energy Fellow Nan Zhao, produces Soofa Bench, a solar-powered, phone-charging park bench, and Soofa sign, which displays public transit times, weather, and events, among other city information. By implementing use of high-tech versions of common city fixtures, like benches and signs, Changing Environments hopes to accelerate the development of “smart” cities that use technology to solve urban challenges.
• In 2017, The Engine, founded by MIT in 2016, announced investments in its first group of multiple startups. The startups included Via Separations, co-founded by former MITEI Energy Fellow Shreya Dave PhD ’16 and Brent Keller PhD ’16, which develops a materials technology for industrial separation processes that uses 10 times less energy than traditional methods.
• Using a novel desiccant material developed at MIT, Transaera is developing an ultra-efficient air conditioning system that will bring comfort to billions of people while reducing the impact on climate and grid infrastructure. The company was founded in 2017 by Sorin Grama (D-Lab) and Mircea Dincă (Chemistry) with support from MITEI’s Tata Center for Technology and Design, and has received venture capital backing as well as a Small Business Innovation Research Phase II grant from the National Science Foundation.
• Waya offers software and design services to utilities in developing countries that help them to lower the cost of improving and expanding their electricity services. The company is led by Reja Amatya SM ’08 PhD ’12, who was part of the team that developed Waya’s technology when she worked as a research scientist at the Tata Center.
• Swift Solar is a startup with MITEI roots that is developing lightweight solar panels based on perovskite semiconductors. Joel Jean PhD ’17, a former MITEI Energy Fellow, spent two years working on The Future of Solar Energy, a report published MITEI in 2015. Today, he is striving to create that future as CEO of Swift Solar. Jean says it was his work on the report, rather than his work in the lab—that most contributed to his role in the founding of Swift Solar. Jean and co-founder Max Hoerantner also credit the experience they gained working at GridEdge Solar, an interdisciplinary MIT research program that works toward scalable solar and is funded by the Tata Trusts through MITEI’s Tata Center for Technology and Design.

Collaborations with the U.S. Department of Energy on new research centers:

• In 2017, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that MITEI had been selected to share faculty expertise in clean energy innovation as an academic and research collaborator of the new Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment (RAPID) Manufacturing Institute, working with other institutions and DOE. Researchers included chemical engineering faculty members Michael Strano (Chemical Engineering; principal investigator), Paula Hammond, Paul Barton, Richard Braatz, Fikile Brushett, Bill Green, T. Alan Hatton, Klavs Jensen, Karthish Manthiram, Allan Myerson, Kristala Prather, Yuriy Roman, and Zachary Smith, and chemistry faculty member Yogesh Surendranath.
• In 2018, the U.S. Department of Energy selected a new MIT research center, the Center for Enhanced Nanofluidic Transport (CENT), as one of 42 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs). CENT, led by Michael Strano (Chemical Engineering), focuses on the nanoscale study of energy to achieve energy efficiency in separation and chemical purification processes, as well as in the synthesis of new materials. MITEI coordinates MIT’s efforts on the EFRCs.

Other MITEI research examples include:

• Fusion collaboration: In 2019, fusion became the largest single area of research funded through MITEI due to our collaboration with the MIT spinoff Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), MITEI member company Eni S.p.A., and the MIT fusion research through the Laboratory for Innovation in Fusion Sciences. CFS was founded in 2018, largely made possible by twelve years of MITEI’s engagement with leaders of the Italian energy company Eni S.p.A. This new fusion startup was able to launch out of MIT with $50 million from Eni, much of which is being channeled back into MIT laboratory research—as well as millions of dollars in support from Eni for fusion research projects run out of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC)’s newly created Laboratory for Innovation in Fusion Technologies (LIFT) (see related Boston Globe feature). It is important to note that the engagement here is about much more than funding—although the funding has been vital for this effort—MITEI helped Eni explore the need for diversifying their portfolio into low-carbon sources of energy, which led to their interest in fusion and the investment in CFS. CFS became the first of a new class of startup MITEI members which further strengthens the research ties between the company and MIT. Eni’s initial investment was crucial for securing additional investments in CFS. During this time, Eni also launched a new business arm, Eni Next, to focus on investing in low-carbon startups.
• Development of a new lifecycle assessment tool, the Sustainable Energy System Analysis Modeling Environment (SESAME), with support from ExxonMobil and from the International Energy Agency. Several existing lifecycle analysis models require expert help in order to parse the data in a way that is useful for policy makers and industry. SESAME bridges that divide, enabling experts and laypeople to understand the impact of all relevant technological, operational, temporal, and geospatial variables on the evolving energy system—and to make informed decisions about the best paths forward. The project, led by MITEI research scientist Emre Gençer, employs a team of postdocs with a diverse range of renewable energy and sustainable engineering backgrounds.
• Convening the Global Commission to End Energy Poverty in 2019 to develop cost-effective, viable pathways for rapidly providing electricity services to hundreds of millions of underserved homes and businesses—with support from the Rockefeller Foundation. The Commission operates under the joint chairmanship of the Rockefeller Foundation President Dr. Rajiv J. Shah; former U.S. Secretary of Energy and Founding Director of MITEI Ernest Moniz; and Africa Development Bank President Dr. Akinwumi Adisina. They oversee the work of a research team led by the MITEI Deputy Director Robert Stoner and MIT visiting professor Ignacio Perez-Arriaga.
• MITEI Seed Fund projects: Since the launch of the Climate Action Plan, MITEI has awarded 43 Seed Fund grants to MIT faculty for promising low-carbon energy and climate research. The Fund has supported 185 early-stage energy research projects through a total of $24.9 million in grants since its establishment in 2008, with support from MITEI’s founding and sustaining industry members, supplemented by gifts from generous donors. Here are just a few examples of projects supported since the announcement of the climate plan:
  • A seed grant from Shell of approximately $300,000 in 2016 helped MITEI PIs develop a business concept called “Energy Company of the Future,” which the founder of new energy service company Konexa began to put into practice in 2019 for rapid electrification in rural Africa. The company’s focus is on network efficiency improvements and sustainable energy access for all, with solar mini-grids, solar home systems, and economic development as components of their business plan. Konexa has raised a combination of commercial and philanthropic funding, and represents an important step forward in reshaping electricity firms in Nigeria and elsewhere.
  • MITEI Seed Fund grant recipients Antoine Allanore, assistant professor of metallurgy; Cooper Rinzler PhD ’17; and graduate student Youyang Zhao created a high-temperature device that produces electricity from industrial waste heat, with implications for more efficient, economical ways to recover energy. The 2017 project was also supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
  • In 2017, researchers from MIT, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the University of California at Berkeley developed an artificial intelligence system that could pore through millions of research papers to extract “recipes” for producing particular materials. At MIT, the research was conducted by Elsa Olivetti (Materials Science and Engineering [DMSE]), Edward Kim, an MIT graduate student in DMSE; and Kevin Huang, a DMSE postdoc; research was supported through a MITEI Seed Fund Grant. The project also received support through the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, and U.S. Department of Energy.
  • In 2017, Evelyn Wang (Mechanical Engineering) and Heena Mutha PhD ’17, used their MITEI Seed Fund grant to develop a nondestructive method of quantifying the detailed characteristics of carbon nanotube samples—a valuable tool for optimizing these materials for use as electrodes in a variety of practical devices, from capacitors and batteries to water desalination systems.
  • In 2017, William Tisdale (Chemical Engineering), Rachel Gilmore PhD ’17, and colleagues used a MITEI Seed Fund Grant to create quantum dot films that provide unprecedented high performance in solar cells, LEDs, and thermoelectric systems.
  • In 2017, Christopher Warshaw (Political Science) and Leah Stokes SM ’15, PhD ’15 used their MITEI Seed Fund grant to examine the interaction between public opinion and renewable energy policy-making. Based on the data they gathered, they were able to offer practical advice to advocates and policy makers on how to bolster public support for renewable policies.
  • Using their MITEI Seed Fund grant, Betar Gallant and graduate student Aliza Khurram (both Mechanical Engineering) are developing a novel battery that could both capture carbon dioxide in power plant exhaust and convert it to a solid ready for safe disposal.
  • Using their “cybersafety” methodology, Stuart Madnick and cybersecurity researcher Shaharyar Khan (both MIT Sloan School of Management) and James L. Kirtley, Jr. (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), used their MITEI Seed Fund Grant to show that today’s energy systems are rife with vulnerabilities to cyberattack, and share a new methodology for analyzing and strengthening its cybersecurity. (Listen to the related podcast.)
  • Heather Kulik and graduate student Jon-Paul Janet (both Chemical Engineering) have applied their MITEI Seed Fund award to research coupling artificial neural networks with genetic algorithms to examine huge databases of transition metal compounds for potential use in devices from sensors to quantum computers.
  • Deployments of advanced energy storage systems such as lithium-ion batteriescontinue growing exponentially. MITEI Research Scientist Apurba Sakti has been leading efforts to better understand the value proposition of this technology by filling a gap in the way these systems are represented in power system models and highlighting the importance of such accurate representations (Journal of Power Sources 2017 & Applied Energy 2020). These efforts facilitate a fairer comparison of this market-dominant technology with emerging storage technologies by accounting for attributes such as battery degradation. In collaboration with Fikile Brushett (Chemical Engineering) and Audun Botterud (MIT Laboratory for Decisions and Information Systems), and with support from a MITEI Low-Carbon Energy Center for Energy Storage Seed Fund grant, they procured a high-precision coulometer and started a battery test facility that provides them with the capability to test these batteries under a range of operating conditions and reliably predict corresponding lifetimes within a short period of time.
• MITEI’s Tata Center for Technology and Design has also supported numerous projects through its annual Seed Fund, including eight new projects for the academic year 2018-2019. The winning proposals became part of a portfolio of 45 active projects currently being supported by the Center. Having funded more than 150 proposals, the Center, along with Tata Trusts, has helped to prepare the projects for adoption by startups, established firms, and policy makers.
• Some projects funded through MITEI ultimately have applications beyond energy as well. For example, a collaboration between the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research and MITEI called NEPTUNE funded research by Steven Leeb (Electrical Engineering), Andre Aboulian MS ’18, and MIT colleagues. They worked with the U.S. Naval Academy and U.S. Coast Guard to develop a new, non-intrusive load monitoring system to track usage and potential failures of all electrical devices within a building, ship, or factory. The system allows for “energy scorekeeping, activity tracking, and condition-based monitoring,” as Leeb describes, with the monitoring as vital “especially for people with mission-critical systems.” Leeb had previously been awarded a MITEI Seed Fund grant that supported earlier stages of this work.

Additional projects MITEI and its members have supported since the launch of the climate plan include research in a range of science, technology, and policy areas; here is a sample of some projects in different areas:

Policy examples:

• A December 2016 study by Sergey Paltsev (Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change; MITEI) argues that model-driven energy scenarios are a powerful tool to aid policy-making and assess investment risks associated with different emissions reduction pathways, but warns that they should not be used as a decision-making tool as they may not provide exact projections. The study further shows the benefits in using multiple energy scenarios to gather a range of possible future predictions that can help decision makers assess the scope of technological changes needed to effect considerable transformations in energy consumption and production.
• In a 2016 study, Valerie Karplus (MIT Sloan School of Management) and colleagues at MIT and Tsinghua University find that China has the potential to dramatically increase wind energy production if it can successfully integrate wind into the existing grid. The work at MIT was funded by a consortium of founding sponsors of the MIT-Tsinghua China Energy and Climate Project, supported through MITEI: Eni, the French Development Agency (AFD), ICF, and Shell.
• A 2018 MIT study found that a 4% reduction of China’s CO₂ emissions annually would net $339 billion in health savings. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, estimates that by meeting its greenhouse gas-reduction goals, China would simultaneously improve its air quality, which would avoid a significant number of deaths due to air pollution, across every province. The study was led by Valerie Karlpus (MIT Sloan School of Management) and Noelle Selin (Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences). This research was supported in part by Eni S.p.A., ICF International, and Shell International Ltd., through MITEI, and by the French Development Agency, the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative, and the Energy Information Administration at the U.S. Department of Energy.
• A 2018 analysis by MIT and NREL researchers, including John Reilly (Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change), compared carbon pricing approaches to determine which could be most effective in helping reduce emissions, and which would be most equitable and have bipartisan appeal. They combined an economic model developed at MIT, which assesses the impacts of different policies on the world’s likely climate trajectory, with a model developed at NREL depicting the nation’s electrical system. This combination allowed for a more detailed assessment of the way different policies would affect decisions by the power producers and distributors.
• A 2019 study by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and the International Food Policy Research Institute found that efforts to substantially limit greenhouse gas emissions would likely boost GDP of developing nations over the next 30 years.
• Utility-scale photovoltaic arrays are an economic investment across most of the United States when health and climate benefits are taken into account, concludes a 2020 analysis by MITEI postdoc Patrick Brown PhD ’16 and Francis O’Sullivan (MIT Sloan School of Management; Ørsted Onshore North America). Their results show the importance of providing accurate price signals to generators and consumers and of adopting policies that reward installation of solar arrays where they will bring the most benefit.

Solar examples:

• Researchers at MIT created the lightest and thinnest solar cell ever produced, based on a concept experiment by Professor Vladimir Bulović (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; MIT.nano). The ultrathin, flexible photovoltaic cells could find many new uses that could help power the next generation of portable electronic devices. The process is described in a paper by Bulović, Research Scientist Annie Wang, and doctoral student Joel Jean in the April 2016 issue of the journal Organic Electronics. The work was supported by MITEI Founding Member Eni S.p.A. via the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center, and by the National Science Foundation.
• MIT Research Scientist Shijing Sun (Photovoltaics Research Laboratory), Tonio Buonassisi (Mechanical Engineering) and colleagues from MIT and other institutions have accelerated the process of screening new combinations of perovskite elements, which will aid in developing new, more efficient solar cells. Their process has achieved a roughly ten-fold improvement in the speed of the synthesis and analysis of new compounds. The research was supported by Total SA through MITEI, by the National Science Foundation, and Singapore’s National Research Foundation through the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology.
• MITEI researchers Ian Miller, Emre Gençer, materials science and engineering student Hilary Vogelbaum, and colleagues used a modeling tool to integrate photovoltaic life cycle inventories, background emission factors, known physical correlations, and modern photovoltaic performance modeling. The photovoltaic performance modeling improved the life cycle analysis of solar power. The research, published in 2019 in Applied Energy, was supported by MITEI Founding Member ExxonMobil.
• Vladimir Bulović (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; MIT.nano) and the ONE Lab work to create next-generation, lightweight, flexible photovoltaics that could change the way the world deploys solar energy systems. Much of this solar research has been funded through MITEI via the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center and the Tata Center for Technology and Design. (Listen to the related podcast.)
• Research by Joel Jean, a former MIT postdoc, MITEI Energy Fellow, and CEO of startup company Swift Solar; Vladimir Bulović (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; MIT.nano); and Michael Woodhouse (NREL) shows that solar panels with lifetimes as little as 10 years can sometimes be economically viable, even for grid-scale installations. This could open the door to promising new solar photovoltaic technologies that have long been considered insufficiently durable for widespread use. The research was supported by GridEdge Solar, an interdisciplinary MIT research program that works toward scalable solar, funded by the Tata Trusts through MITEI’s Tata Center for Technology and Design.

Materials examples:

• Researchers Katerina Ioannidou (MITEI), Roland Pellenq (Civil and Environmental Engineering), and Franz-Josef Ulm (Civil and Environmental Engineering) have developed a new method to control the microstructure of concrete, which presents opportunities for manufacturing more durable and sustainable materials than typical concrete. The research was supported by former MITEI Member Schlumberger through the MITEI-supported MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub.
• A team of MIT engineers including Rohit Karnik (Mechanical Engineering) have found that pairing graphene with a thin underlying support substrate pocked with tiny holes, or pores, is the key to creating an ultrathin material capable of withstanding high pressures. These findings can serve as a guideline for designing tough, graphene-based membranes that could be used in applications such as desalination in which filtration membranes must withstand high pressures to effectively remove salt from seawater. This research was supported in part by MITEI and the U.S. Department of Energy.
• Graduate student Cedric Viry, Jeffrey Grossman (Mechanical Engineering), and postdoc Grace Han, with their collaborators, developed a system using specially designed “photoswitching” molecules to control the release of heat from materials used to store thermal energy in devices ranging from solar concentrators and solar cookers to heated seats in vehicles. This research was supported by MITEI’s Tata Center for Technology and Design.
• In 2018, MIT researchers Stefanie Jegelka (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) and Elsa Olivetti (Materials Science and Engineering) used their Seed Fund award to demonstrate a novel system using artificial intelligence techniques to help identify methods of fabricating materials for energy and other applications, especially those that look promising in computer simulations.
• A process developed by MITEI researchers and described in a 2019 Nature Catalysis article could turn desalination waste into useful chemicals, making desalination more efficient and environmentally friendly. The approach can be used to produce sodium hydroxide, among other products. This research was supported by Cadagua, a subsidiary of Ferrovial, through MITEI.
• MIT postdoc Xianwen Mao PhD ’14 and colleagues at MIT and other institutions published a 2019 paper in Nature Materials with findings that a novel class of ionic liquids may store more energy than conventional electrolytes. The discovery has implications for carbon capture and resource recovery from waste streams. The research was supported through MITEI and other sources.
• Evelyn Wang, Gang Chen, graduate student Elise Strobach (all of Mechanical Engineering), and colleagues have fabricated a transparent version of a silica aerogel, an ultralight material that blocks heat transfer. They have used their aerogel in a solar thermal collector to generate temperatures suitable for water and space heating and more—without using several expensive materials that have kept current solar thermal systems from being widely adopted. Their established guidelines that will help innovators design and fabricate aerogels with nanoscale structures tailored for high performance in other critical technologies. This research was supported by entities within the U.S. DOE and MITEI’s Tata Center for Technology and Design. Strobach went on to win the 2019 MIT Clean Energy Prize $100,000 grand prize for her team, Aeroshield. She is CEO and co-founder of Aeroshield, which is manufacturing a super-insulating, lightweight, porous glass for energy-efficient windows using the aerogel technology developed at MIT.

Electric power sector examples:

• MITEI, Comillas Pontifical University (IIT-Comillas), and AVANGRID created a model to inform New York’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) plan by simulating the impact of distributed resources on the power system. REV envisions a grid that relies on significantly more distributed resources in order to create a more efficient, resilient, and affordable electricity delivery system. The collaboration with AVANGRID was part of the Utility of the Future study.
• In an August 2016 Nature Energy paper, Jessika Trancik (Institute for Data, Systems, and Society), graduate student Zachary Needell, postdoc James McNerney, and recent graduate Michael Chang SM ’15 find that electric vehicles can meet drivers’ needs enough to replace nearly 90 percent of vehicles now on the road. The research was funded in part by MITEI. (Related article in the Washington Post.)
• A team of researchers from MIT led by Alex Slocum (Mechanical Engineering) and researchers from the University of Hawaii created a detailed analysis of a symbiotic system that combines a pumped hydropower energy storage system and reverse osmosis desalination plant in one large-scale engineering project. The system aims to economically bring fresh water and large-scale renewable energy storage to drought-stricken coastal regions around the world. The paper, published in Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments, is available as an open access article, thanks to a grant by the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation through MITEI, which also supported the class from which this material originated. The class was partially supported by MISTI and the cooperative agreement between the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology and MIT.
• In a 2018 paper in Joule, MIT researchers Nestor Sepulveda, Jesse Jenkins, Fernando J. deSisternes, and Associate Provost Richard Lester (Nuclear Science and Engineering) share guidelines for cost-effective and reliable ways to build a zero-carbon electricity system, finding that the best path is through an inclusive mix of low-carbon electricity sources. Across a wide range of scenarios and locations, the study finds that pairing renewable sources like wind power, solar power, and energy storage systems with steady carbon-free resources such as nuclear, geothermal, bioenergy, and natural gas with carbon capture is a less costly and lower-risk route to a carbon-free grid than powering the grid with wind, solar, and storage alone. The research received support from MITEI, the Martin Family Trust, and the Chilean Navy. (See related MITEI podcast, article on Sepulveda, and reference from Bill Gates to the work.)
• An optimization model developed by MITEI researchers Jesse Jenkins (Institute for Data, Systems, and Society), Fernando deSisternes (MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research), Audun Botterud (MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems) and Argonne National Laboratory shows that operating nuclear plants flexibly can reduce electricity costs, increase revenue for nuclear plants, and cut CO₂ emissions in electric power systems. Their “mixed integer linear programming” formulation demonstrates how nuclear energy and renewable energy sources can work together rather than replace each other, and serve to integrate more renewable into the grid.
• MIT postdoc Jinwoo Kim and Cem Tasan (Materials Science and Engineering) created a new technique that allows the observation of a metal surface during hydrogen penetration. The microscopy technique could help researchers design safer nuclear reactor vessels or hydrogen storage tanks. The work was supported by the Exelon Corp through MITEI.
• Research by Scott Burger (MITEI) and colleagues including former MITEI researcher Jesse Jenkins and Ignacio Perez-Arriaga (MITEI/IIT Comillas University), along with Samuel Huntington SM ’16 (IHS Markit) examines the tradeoffs between centralized and decentralized resources like utility scale and rooftop scale solar photovoltaics. In the February 2019 issue of IEEE Power and Energy Magazine, they propose a simple heuristic for determining when decentralized resources will deliver more value to society than their larger scale counterparts: when the locational value exceeds incremental unit costs. This heuristic can help policy makers and regulators consider new models for incentivizing distributed energy resource deployment. This research was funded by MITEI’s Utility of the Future
• Dharik Mallapragada (MITEI) and coauthors from Iberdrola published a 2020 MITEI working paper that explores the potential for power sector decarbonization based on the cost-competitive addition of wind and solar technologies in the absence of any supporting policy, as per current technology cost and performance trends, as well as projected cost and performance in 2030. The study found that there is a possibility for variable renewable energy generation to become the dominant share of electricity supply in many regions over the next decade, if historical cost reduction trends persist. This study was supported by MITEI’s Low-Carbon Energy Center for Energy Storage.

Energy storage examples:

• In 2018, Apurba Sakti (MITEI), Audun Botterud (MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems), and Francis O’Sullivan, former director of research and analysis at MITEI, published a comprehensive review of regulations shaping U.S. energy storage deployment and discussed policies for better storage integration. The researchers highlight the fragmented and heterogeneous nature of existing market participation models available for advanced energy storage across restructured power markets and emphasize the need for design changes to power markets at all timescales to allow for the more efficient integration of energy storage. This research was supported through MITEI’s Low-Carbon Energy Center for Energy Storage.
• In 2018, Emre Gençer, Ian Miller, and Francis O’Sullivan (all of MITEI), published a model for estimating emissions from integrated power generation and energy storage that applies to emissions of all pollutants. As a case study, the model is used to estimate the greenhouse gas emissions of electricity from systems that couple photovoltaic and wind generation with lithium-ion batteries and vanadium redox flow batteries.
• A 2018 MITEI working paper by William Bonvillian (former director of MIT’s DC Office) and David Hart (George Mason University) warns that the energy storage industry is at risk of prematurely settling on Lithium-ion batteries, the technology currently dominating this sector, and stifling innovation into tech that could be better suited to utility-scale energy storage. The paper encourages more diversity in energy storage technologies and provides recommendations for policy makers, such as expanding R&D funding, creating tax credits for emerging energy storage technologies, and countering unfair trade practices by working with international allies.
• Tonio Buonassisi (Mechanical Engineering); postdocs Ian Mathews, Bolun Xu (formerly of MITEI; now a professor at Columbia) and Wei He; MBA student Vanessa Barreto; and Research Scientist Ian Marius Peters investigated the economics of second-use of electric vehicle batteries with solar power generation. Their 2020 paper, published in Applied Energy, accounted for the impact of battery degradation on the economics of deploying these batteries for improving the economics of solar power generation.
• In 2020, Mehdi Jafari, Audun Botterud (both MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems), and Apurba Sakti (MITEI) wrote an invited study highlighting the importance of improved battery representations in decision-making tools. Most power system models do not represent advanced energy storage technologies such as lithium-ion batteries properly. The group investigated six lithium-ion battery modeling approaches and used energy- and capacity-market revenues for an offshore wind farm in New York, as a test case to highlight the importance of better decision-tools. The work was supported by Equinor ASA.

Mobility examples:

• Using computer simulation analysis, Dan Cohn (MITEI) and Leslie Bromberg (Plasma Science and Fusion Center) have developed a conceptual design for a new, small highly turbocharged, spark-ignition gasoline engine for heavy-duty trucks that is as efficient and powerful as full sized diesel engines—without high emissions. (See related 2019 technical paper and article in Ars Technica.)
• Team members of MITEI’s Mobility of the Future study have published a number of related papers and commented in media stories on how the future of personal transportation could unfold. Among these are:
  • A 2019 report by MIT researchers Jimi B. Oke, Youssef M Aboutaleb, Arun Akkinepally, Carlos Lima Azevedo, Yafei Han, Christopher Zegras, Joseph Ferreira, and Moshe Ben-Akiva, looking at the implications of a new framework for relationships between mobility and environmental sustainability factors. The report presents a new typologization spanning 331 cities in 124 countries. The sample represents 40% of the global urban population and contains the most recent data from 2008 to 2019. Using a factor analytic and agglomerative clustering approach, researchers identify nine urban factors and 12 typologies. They discuss the implications of this new framework for researchers and planners and investigate the relationships between mobility and environmental sustainability indicators.
  • A 2019 study by Joanna Moody PhD ’19, MITEI Mobility Systems Center research manager, and Jinhua Zhao (Urban Studies and Planning) that provides new insights into how decision makers in hundreds of Chinese cities design and adopt policies relating to transportation—policies that could together curtail the rapidly growing demand for personal vehicles in China. Based on a mathematical analysis of historical data plus text analysis of policy reports, the team concludes that Chinese cities that have experienced similar urban development and motorization trends over time prioritize the same types of transportation policies to deal with their local conditions.

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) examples:

• A 2019 CNBC article discusses the research that MIT is doing in CCUS. At MITEI’s Low-Carbon Energy Center for Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS), researchers are undertaking work to cut the cost of carbon capture, enable secure carbon storage options and develop “carbon utilization opportunities.” The Center is researching processes such as electrochemical CO₂ fixation, which would employ “state-of-the-art catalytic methods” to use low-carbon renewable electricity to help convert CO₂ into a range of assets.
• Emre Gençer (MITEI) leads a project to design and optimize power generation solutions with CO₂capture for liquefied natural gas applications. LNG is a special energy carrier due since in addition to its calorific value it carries significant amount of cold exergy that can be recovered if judiciously used. The goal of this project is to exploit the unique characteristic of LNG by synthesizing and optimizing novel LNG power plant designs with synergistically embedded CO₂ capture systems for near-zero emissions, and to investigate economically and technically viable zero-emission LNG power plant design.
• Sahag Voskian SM ’15, PhD ’19 and T. Alan Hatton (Chemical Engineering) have demonstrated a system with promise for capturing CO₂ in various exhaust streams—from power plants to home furnaces—and even retrieve it from ambient air. Tests show that the small, simple system is durable and efficient at targeting any level of CO₂ in any volume of exhaust. The researchers plan to develop a pilot-scale plant within a few years. This research was supported by a MITEI Seed Fund grant and by Eni S.p.A. through MITEI. Sahag Voskian SM ’15, PhD ’19 was an Eni–MIT Energy Fellow and is now co-founder and chief technology officer at Verdox, Inc.

Developing world examples:

• At MITEI’s Tata Center for Technology and Design, researchers explored ways to extend electricity access to rural communities in India using microgrids. In addition to being flexible in size, microgrids can run on whatever power sources are available, including wind, hydropower, and the source accessible at all sites: solar power. Tata researchers led by Robert Stoner (MITEI) and Ignacio Pérez-Arriaga (MITEI/IIT-Comillas University), worked to address the microgrid challenge at the macro level.
• Amos Winter (Mechanical Engineering), Tata Fellow Natasha Wright, and a team of researchers developed a solar powered electrodialysis device to provide clean drinking water in rural India. Researchers worked with Jain Irrigation Systems and interviewed residents in order to understand the problems that would help them design a water treatment system that was affordable and would actually work in the context of rural Indian villages. The project went on to win a USAID Desal Prize. Wright was named to the Forbes “30 Under 30” list for energy for her work on the project.
• MIT postdocs Grace Han and Huashan Li and Jeffrey Grossman (Materials Science and Engineering) discovered a new chemical composite that can store heat in the form of a thermal battery during the day, and release its energy on demand as heat at night. This new technology could provide an alternative to fuel in large parts of the developing world. The research was supported by MITEI’s Tata Center for Technology and Design.
• James Kirtley (Electrical Engineering) and Tata Fellow Mohammad Qasim built a high-efficiency, affordable electric motor that could have a huge impact in India, home to as many as half a billion ceiling fans. They used a state-of-the-art ceiling fan as a benchmark for evaluating the performance of their motor designs. In reducing the power demands of the standard ceiling fan by as much as 65 Watts, they hope to have a far-reaching, positive effect on India’s energy system. Ultimately, they believe efficient, affordable motors can be integrated into a number of common appliances.
• A new system developed by MIT engineers could provide a low-cost source of drinking water for cities around the world while also cutting power plant operating costs. The system is the basis for a startup company called Infinite Cooling, co-founded by Maher Damak PhD ’18 and Kripa Varanasi (Mechanical Engineering). Their research is supported in part by MITEI’s Tata Center for Technology and Design.

Education

MITEI’s education program has undergone significant expansions in its offerings for undergraduates as well as graduate students and postdocs since the launch of the climate plan; here is a sample of activities and programs in this timeframe:

• MITEI is working with MIT Open Learning to launch the “Future of Energy Systems MicroMasters,” an online, graduate-level program allowing global learners to access the knowledge, skills, and research needed to transition global energy systems to clean energy within a critical timeframe. Directed by Christopher Knittel (MIT Sloan School of Management; Co-Director of MITEI’s Electric Power Systems Low-Carbon Energy Center), this program incorporates cutting edge, interdisciplinary content from faculty and researchers in Architecture, MIT Sloan School of Management, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Nuclear Science and Engineering. The first course, “Sustainable Building Design,” with Christoph Reinhart (Architecture) launched in January 2020 and attracted over 17,000 enrolled learners. Due to high demand, it is being held again during summer 2020. The next course, “Sustainable Energy Systems,” with Michael Golay (Nuclear Science and Engineering) will launch in September 2020. “Principles of Modeling Electric Energy Systems” with Marija Ilic (Institute for Data, Systems, and Society) is in development and expected to launch in early 2021, and Christopher Knittel’s “Energy Economics and Policy” is expected by summer 2021. Proposals for additional course topics have been submitted. The goal of this MicroMasters is to deliver the skills needed to decarbonize global energy systems at the required scale and timeframe.
• In early October 2016, after more than a year of planning and construction, MITEI’s Undergraduate Energy Commons, located under MIT’s iconic dome in Room 10-063, opened to students, faculty, and staff. The Energy Commons is a mixed configuration of educational and activity space for students to gather, hold events, and collaborate on projects. The development of this space was made possible by a grant from the S.D. Bechtel, Jr., Foundation.
• In April 2019, MITEI published a revised Energy Studies Minor curriculum after receiving acceptance from the Committee on Curricula. It has led to improved curriculum flexibility across the fall and spring course offerings and an increase in the number of advisors across academic departments.
• Jing Li was hired in 2018 as the William Barton Rogers Career Development Chair of Energy Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. This is a new faculty position at MIT created by endowment raised by MITEI.
• As noted in the section on Low-Carbon Energy Centers, a search is currently underway for a new faculty position, the Iberdrola-AVANGRID professorship at MIT, dedicated to research and education in power systems engineering. Iberdrola decided to fund this position because of its involvement with MITEI through the Utility of the Future study and subsequent discussions, and also became a MITEI Sustaining Member.
• MITEI has facilitated opportunities for students to explore low-carbon energy careers and receive career advice—efforts that have ramped up substantially over the past several years:
  • MITEI has held numerous “career insights” discussions with working professionals involved in the energy transition; these events have evolved into a larger, annual, day-long conference, “Working the Energy Transition”—which had more than 80 undergraduate and graduate students in attendance in 2019.
  • MITEI Energy UROP students focus on research that grapples with climate change; for example, work on sustainable energy production. Since 2019, MITEI application language has directed students to address climate change in their research proposals, with new language in 2020 tying the proposed research to UN Sustainable Development Goals. Since 2017, these students have had professional development opportunities, including the chance to present their projects to member companies at MITEI’s Annual Research Conference.
  • Undergraduate and graduate students have had the opportunity to meet in small groups with high-level company representatives and asked pertinent questions about the companies’ plans for the energy transition.
  • Students have received support from MITEI to attend major climate and energy conferences including the UN Climate Change Conference and CERAWeek, and have also been able to speak on panels and present posters at MITEI’s Annual Research Conference and other MITEI events.
  • Addison Stark SM ’10, PhD ’15 and Kachana Nanduri SM ’13 are two of the many MITEI alumni who are making positive impacts in energy-related careers.
    • Stark (Mechanical Engineering, Technology and Policy Program) is the associate director for energy innovation at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, which focuses on implementing effective policy on important topics for American citizens. As an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, he teaches a course on clean energy innovation. He was formerly a fellow and acting program director at the U.S. DOE’s ARPA-E.
    • For Nanduri (Civil and Environmental Engineering), her time at MIT as an Eni-MIT Energy Fellow through MITEI led her from a thesis on optimizing traffic signals in a city to reduce emissions to a career at Amazon optimizing package delivery to be as energy efficient as possible.
  • MITEI is a long-time sponsor of the student-run MIT Energy Conference, providing a team of mentors who advise on areas from programming and speaker recruitment to communications, and fundraising, to name a few. MITEI Associate Director Louis Carranza is the staff advisor to the MIT Energy Club. MITEI’s involvement with the club and conference has catalyzed additional engagement with industry and helped students take advantage of opportunities for one-on-one interactions with leaders in business and government.
  • During MIT’s Independent Activities Period (IAP), MITEI consistently offers opportunities for students. Several examples:
    • MITEI has held numerous field trips during IAP to give students firsthand experience with the regional low-carbon energy ecosystem. These have included trips to a wind turbine in Hull, MA, and conversations with officials involved in the project; visits to Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority facilities to look at energy use in transportation; and a weeklong workshop in Marseille, France, on multiscale porous materials and their applications in the nuclear power industry
    • The Vineyard Sustainable Energy Committee, a group of representatives from all the towns’ energy committees on Martha’s Vineyard, collaborated with MITEI to develop a multifaceted action plan to help Vineyard communities become carbon neutral by 2030. To start, MITEI hosted a “net-zero carbon design thinking workshop” during the 2019 IAP. The week-long program offered participants a chance to creatively explore clean energy options through a process known as the “design thinking” model. The workshop was co-hosted with Shell, a founding member of MITEI.
    • In 2020, MITEI researcher Pablo Duenas-Martinez held an IAP course focused on modeling tools used to study design and operation of lower-carbon power systems, with IIT-Comillas professors Andre Ramos and Javier Garcia-Gonzalez, and MITEI researchers Patrick Brown and Dharik Mallapragada.
  • Among new class offerings since 2015 are:
    • “Global Energy: Politics, Markets, and Policy,” taught by Valerie Karplus (MIT Sloan School of Management) starting in 2018. The class explores how politics and economics influence energy technologies, markets, and governance, and is offered to both undergraduate and graduate It is part of the Energy Studies Minor and was funded by an S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation grant.
    • New massively open online courses launched in 2019: the first two are Christoph Reinhart’s “Environmental Technologies in Buildings,” an elective within the Energy Studies Minor that focuses on assessing the energy efficiency of buildings, and Chris Knittel’s “Energy Economics and Policy,” which discusses theoretical and empirical perspectives on individual and industrial demand for energy, energy supply, energy markets, and public policies affecting energy markets. The new offerings join more than 35 energy-related courses currently covered by OpenCourseWare.
    • “Economics of Energy, Innovation, and Sustainability”: Jing Li (MIT Sloan School of Management) aims for students to leave her class with the knowledge that sustainability and energy touch every organization in some way. For some students, the class has inspired them to pursue energy and sustainability internships and careers.
  • Since the Climate Action Plan, MITEI has helped fund teaching assistants for “Introduction to Sustainable Energy” and “Physics of Energy,” which are both included in the Energy Studies Minor core curriculum.
  • MITEI member-supported Energy Fellowships for graduate students and postdocs provided funding for numerous research projects with positive implications for confronting climate change through science and technology. Two examples:
    • An Energy Fellowship with MITEI member Total supported Rebecca Saari’s research on a study published in 2017 with Noelle Selin (Institute for Data, Systems, and Society; Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences) and Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change researchers, providing the first breakdown of ozone exposure, health, and economic impacts by household income across the U.S. By integrating air pollution modeling with economic analysis, this approach can be used to help policy makers better identify ozone reduction policies that will reduce environmental inequalities. The research was also funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the MIT Leading Technology and Policy Initiative; and the MIT Martin Family Society Fellowship; and the National Park Service.
    • MIT Mesoscale Nuclear Materials Group postdoc Sara Ferry, a MITEI Energy Fellow supported by Shell, was able to continue and expand a project initiated with ARPA-E to explore how the successful development of multimetallic layered composites would facilitate opportunities for commercial deployment of advanced nuclear reactor concepts that were previously technologically or economically non-viable.

Outreach and Engagement

Since its inception, MITEI has been connecting the MIT community with policy makers, scientific experts from other institutions, industry leaders, and the general public on topics relating to climate change. Faculty members proactively write opinion pieces, field and respond to frequent media requests for expert commentary, and testify before committees of Congress regarding climate science, the need for a transition to a low-carbon future, and possible solutions for achieving the needed change. Here are some of the activities MITEI has led or participated in since the launch of the climate plan:

• In April 2016, MITEI hosted the MIT community for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Day, an event featuring U.S. Department of Energy leaders, MIT faculty, and students with discussions of current research to accelerate scientific breakthroughs in clean energy fields. The event included an MIT student-hosted panel with Institute alumni who currently work at DOE, aimed at sparking current MIT students’ interest in careers in energy policy and research.
• MITEI has continued its collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy on the U.S. C3E (Clean Energy Education and Empowerment) Women in Clean Energy Initiative; MITEI and DOE began their collaboration to launch C3E in 2012. MITEI has hosted the C3E Symposium and Awards four different years since then, and has welcomed the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy and Texas A&M Energy Institute to the collaboration—each university now hosts on a rotating basis. The Initiative has increasingly focused on elevating the voices and experiences of women from diverse backgrounds throughout the U.S.
• In 2018, MITEI began MITEI producing podcasts that explore energy from a variety of angles to make its research more accessible to a large audience and to illustrate how energy impacts our everyday lives. Subjects include electricity markets, artificial intelligence, batteries and storage, and game-changing fusion; guests have included numerous MIT faculty members and outside experts including George Heyman (British Columbia’s minister of environment and climate strategy), Frances Beinecke (past president of the Natural Resources Defense Council), Arun Mujumdar (Stanford; founding director of U.S. DOE’s ARPA-E), Brian Anderson (director of the U.S. DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory), Lisa Jacobson (president, Business Council for Sustainable Energy), and Ethan Zindler (head of the Americas team, BloombergNEF).
• MITEI and others at MIT, led by the Office of the Vice President for Research (VPR), have been engaging with industry around how to report climate-related risks in the financials of oil and gas companies. This 2018-19 effort engaged institutional shareholders, who are important allies in the effort to put pressure on companies to transition their businesses. A team including Erik Landry SM ’18 (VPR), Louis Carranza (MITEI), Jim Gomes (VPR), Henry Jacoby (Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change), Donald Lessard (MIT Sloan School of Management), Sergey Paltsev (MITEI; Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change), and Bethany Patten (MIT Sloan School of Management), published a report in the fall of 2019 (Climate-related Financial Disclosures: The Use of Scenarios) that grew out of the workshop, identifying shortcomings in oil and gas companies’ current climate-related disclosures and made recommendations for making their disclosures more complete, more comparable across companies, and more transparent.
• In 2018, Audun Botterud (MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems), Apurba Sakti (MITEI), and Francis O’Sullivan, former director of research and analysis at MITEI, submitted comments to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during the notice of proposed rulemaking phase of Order 841, a landmark bipartisan order to remove barriers for the participation of energy storage in wholesale electricity markets, based on their work on energy storage systems. Their comments were cited numerous times in the final Order 841.
• In August 2019, MITEI hosted U.S. Department of Energy Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar for two days of meetings with researchers for discussions of MIT and DOE priorities on the transition to a low-carbon future. Members of the Mobility of the Future study team also briefed Dabbar on the study’s findings in November 2019 while in Washington, D.C., for the rollout of the report.
• MITEI was one of the conveners of the 2019 Senior Congressional Staff Seminar to educate Republican Congressional staff on climate and low-carbon energy issues, in collaboration with the Office of the Vice President for Research, MIT International Policy Lab, and MIT DC Office. The meeting provided opportunities for in-depth conversations and interactive learning; participants shared positive feedback on the event, saying they found it helpful for understanding more about the issues. A bipartisan seminar was planned for spring 2020 but has been postponed due to the Covid-19 coronavirus response.
• Starting in the 2019-20 academic year, MIT has been hosting a series of six Climate Action symposia—with the final two symposia, originally scheduled for April 2020, postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. MITEI has been working with MIT’s Office of the Vice President for Research and symposium organizers to produce the series, which draws on the objectives of MIT’s Climate Action Plan.
• Since the November 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Paris, MITEI has been highlighting MIT researchers’ and students’ participation in the annual event to bring attention to the wealth of globally significant work across MIT on climate solutions and highlight the value students find in attending the conference as they plan for careers in low-carbon energy and environmental fields. (See articles from COP21 in Paris, COP22 in Marrakech, COP23 in Bonn, COP24 in Katowice, and COP25 in Madrid.)
• As noted previously, MITEI is a long-time supporter of the student-run MIT Energy Conference, providing sponsorship and helping advise on strategy, programming, and securing diverse speakers; the conference reaches hundreds of people each year—and the 2020 virtual conference had attendance in the thousands.