The 2022 MIT Energy
Conference will return in-person at
the Boston Marriott Cambridge after a 2-year hiatus, and we’re also
planning on a hybrid format to allow other attendees to tune in
virtually from around the globe!
Tickets
The 2022 conference will also expand its scope to include broader issues
in the fight against climate change, both within and outside the energy
sector. Please check out the
agenda page for more details
on our exciting lineup of events. You can find more details on
speakers and startups
presenting at the Tech
Showcase as well.
March 31, 2022 – Day 1, Thursday
9:05am – 9:35am: Keynote address (virtual) by Dr. Fatih Birol: Executive
Director of International Energy Agency
Accelerating Global Action on Clean Energy and Energy Security
Dr Fatih Birol has served as Executive Director of the International
Energy Agency since 2015. Under his leadership, the
IEA has moved to the forefront of global
efforts to reach international climate goals while ensuring that the
social and economic impacts of clean energy transitions are at the heart
of policy-making and energy security is safeguarded.
9:40am – 10:20am: Keynote address by Glenn Llewellyn: Vice President of
the Zero Emission Program at Airbus
Insights on future Hydrogen aircraft
Glenn Llewellyn is Vice President, Zero-Emission Aircraft at Airbus. He
is widely recognized as a top-tier leader on climate strategy for
aviation. Today, Glenn is at the helm of a zero-emission revolution at
Airbus with the mission to unite all the ingredients needed to launch
the world’s first zero-emission commercial aircraft program, ZEROe.
10:35am – 11:15am: PLENARY PANEL: Facilitating
a Just Energy Transition
Moderator: Justin Worland – Senior Correspondent: Climate Change,
TIME Magazine
Systemic injustice has left marginalized communities and nations exposed
to a higher level of threat from the climate crisis. In addition to the
harm already done, these groups are at high risk of further suffering
not only from the consequences of climate change but also from the
adverse effects of the global transition toward decarbonization. It is
therefore critical to ensure that all global platforms and commitments
consider equitable solutions, particularly in vulnerable communities, in
the fight against climate change. Through this panel discussion, we aim
to amplify the voices of those most likely to be adversely impacted by
climate change and the global transition toward decarbonization, who are
fighting to be truly heard in this global discussion. What are the
potential strategies that can simultaneously improve the lives of
marginalized communities while moving the needle on climate solutions?
What concerns do marginalized communities have and how should
stakeholders work together to address those concerns?
Featured Panelists:
- Sarah Jackson – Northeast Regional Climate & Energy Policy Manager,
The Nature Conservancy
- Nonabah Lane – Co-founder, Navajo Ethno-Agriculture
- Heather McGeory – Global Lead, Climate and Sustainability,
APCO Worldwide
- Dr. Destenie Nock – Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
11:20am – 12:00pm: Fireside Chat with Audrey Choi and Jason Jay
Sharing her vision for the role of corporates and private capital in
addressing the climate crisis
Audrey Choi: Senior Advisor and CEO of the
Institute for Sustainable Investing, Morgan Stanley
Audrey Choi is Morgan Stanley’s Chief Sustainability Officer and is the
founding CEO of Morgan Stanley’s
industry-leading Institute for Sustainable Investing where she oversees
the Firm’s efforts to promote global sustainability through the capital
markets. She also serves on the Firm’s Management Committee and for four
years, Ms. Choi simultaneously served as Morgan Stanley’s Chief
Marketing Officer where she stewarded the brand to reflect the Firm’s
core values of leading with integrity and exceptional ideas, and won
industry awards for best corporate strategy and media innovation as the
Morgan Stanley brand reached an all-time high.
Moderator: Jason Jay, Director of MIT Sloan
Sustainable Initiative
Jason Jay is a Senior Lecturer and Director of the
MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative. He
teaches executive and masters-level courses on strategy, innovation, and
leadership for sustainable business. He has helped secure
MIT Sloan’s position as a leader in the field
of sustainability through teaching, research, and industry engagement.
Dr. Jay’s publications have appeared in the Academy of Management
Journal and California Management Review, MIT
Sloan Management Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Greenbiz,
and World Economic Forum. With Gabriel Grant, he is the author of the
international bestseller Breaking Through Gridlock: The Power of
Conversation in a Polarized World. Dr. Jay also works as a facilitator
for companies, organizations, and business families, supporting high
quality conversation and shared commitment to ambitious sustainability
goals. His clients have included EFG Asset
Management, Novartis, Bose, Environmental Defense Fund, BP and the World
Bank.
12:00pm – 1:30pm: Lunch
1:35-2:15pm: BREAKAWAY PANEL I: Deploying the
Hydrogen Economy
Moderator: Dharik Mallapragada, Research Scientist,
MIT Energy Initiative
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, and when used as
an energy source, it emits only water. As the world is struggling to
find replacements for fossil fuels, green hydrogen, hydrogen produced by
renewable energy sources, is gaining significant attention with its
potential to be a zero-emission energy carrier. Nevertheless, the
deployment of hydrogen in the industrial, energy, and transportation
sectors still faces tremendous uncertainties. How can we drive down
costs along the green hydrogen value chain making it more competitive in
the market? How can industry sectors leverage the advantages of hydrogen
to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors? What policy levers and innovation
support should be in place to ensure that countries and regions meet
their hydrogen development goals? This panel will gather industry
leaders in hydrogen planning, production, and utilization to discuss the
progress made in recent years and the future pathways to a hydrogen
economy.
Featured Panelists:
- Arnab Chatterjee – VP of Infrastructure, ZeroAvia
- Preeti Pande – CMO, Plug Power
- Brett Perleman – CEO, Center for Houston’s
Future
1:35-2:15pm: BREAKAWAY PANEL II: Financing the
Journey to Net Zero: Challenges and Opportunities for Environmentally
Sustainable Economic Development
A global energy transition is needed to avert the worst impacts of
climate change, and energy decisions in developing countries will have
an outsized impact on future emissions. However, developing countries
face a number of unique challenges in transitioning energy supplies
while maintaining economic growth. What are the opportunities for
overcoming financial challenges blocking environmentally sustainable
development? What do different governmental, multilateral, and private
development actors see as key priorities and exciting possibilities? How
can the developed world lend a helping hand to developing countries in
terms of equitably financing their energy transition?
International, collaborative, blended public climate finance will have a
critical role to play in bolstering a low-carbon, resilient
transformation of the world’s global economy. This panel seeks to
provoke discussions, spark debate and call for action to mobilize such
resources to halt the erratic clock that’s ticking away at our
collective climate futures.
Featured Panelists:
- Moderator: Anil Markandya – Distinguished Ikerbasque Professor, Basque
Centre for Climate Change
- Pilar Carvajo Lucena – Investment Officer,
IDB Invest
- Vivek Pathak – Director and Global Head for Climate Business,
IFC / World Bank
- Antonio Silveira – VP Infrastructure – CAF,
Bank of Development of Latin America
2:20pm-3:00 pm: BREAKAWAY PANEL I: Modernizing
the Grid
Our extensive and reliable power grid, connecting all generation sources
to all end-uses, has been so critical to our nation’s growth that the
National Academy of Engineering named “electrification” the greatest
engineering achievement of the 20th century. However, the existing power
system cannot meet the evolving demands of the 21st century. Traditional
grid architecture was based on large-scale generation remotely located
from consumers, centralized control structures with minimal feedback,
limited energy storage, and passive loads. A modern grid must be
flexible, robust, and agile from end to end, spanning generation,
delivery, and end-user segments. This panel will discuss some of the
most urgent questions on grid modernization and distributed energy
resource integration, including strategies to increase the deployment of
existing smart grid solutions, the impacts of new technologies such as
vehicle-to-grid integration, how customers increasingly value resiliency
through adoption of backup power and microgrid systems, and new
opportunities and challenges presented by FERC
Order 2222 for customers, distributed resource aggregators, utilities,
and wholesale market operators.
Featured Panelists:
- Moderator: Sanem Sergici – Principal, The Brattle Group
- Tim Hade – COO, Scale Microgrid Solutions
- Stephen Lasher – Director of the Electric Markets Integration,
National Grid
- John Taggart – CTO, WeaveGrid
2:20pm – 3:00pm: BREAKAWAY PANEL II:
Challenges and Trends in the VC Space
Although the energy transition has been gaining traction worldwide, it
has done so without vigorous VC participation. VC investment could
ensure a solid startup ecosystem developing new technologies to build a
sustainable energy economy. For instance, the share of “energy unicorns”
in the United States and Canada, as of April 2021, represented only
1.37% (Source: Statista estimates; CrunchBase; CB Insights, and other),
and the VC deals in energy have reached $1.9 Billion in 2020, the lowest
among the leading industries (Source: NVCA
2021 Yearbook). This panel will address the current role of VC
investors in the clean energy space and today’s greatest challenges to
fostering innovative instruments to tackle the barriers of capital costs
for renewable energy. What are the main challenges in identifying and
funding entrepreneurs focused on unlocking new energy sources? What are
the key elements missing in the current legislation, policy frameworks,
regulations, and guidance to promote more VC deals in the energy
industry? Is the VC participation in energy projects consistent with the
level of emerging startups in that space? What are the critical issues
for achieving a suitable collaboration among stakeholders to improve
financing platforms for energy ventures (Startups, VC, Multilateral
Agencies, and Government)?
Moderator: Jon Shieber – Editor and Venture Partner, FootPrint Coalition
Featured Panelists:
- Ryan Dings – COO and General Counsel,
Greentown Labs
- Brian Mayers – Investor & Company Builder, Breakthrough Energy
Ventures
- Shail Mehta – Managing Director, Global Co-Head of Clean Energy
Transition, Citi
- Christina O’Conor – Partner & Climate Tech Investor, Congruent
Ventures
3:15pm – 3:55pm: BREAKAWAY PANEL I: Driving
the Future of Personal Mobility
Moderator: Annie Hudson – Assistant Director,
MIT Mobility Initiative
As human population, travel, and international trade continue to
increase, so do associated emissions that pose risk to both human health
and the environment. For the United States, transportation is among the
worst offenders, accounting for 29% of total U.S.
GHG emissions in 2019. More specifically,
light-duty vehicles and medium-large trucks alone generated 82% of these
emissions. So while the need to decarbonize personal mobility is
apparent, the heterogeneity and unique needs of population centers
complicate the task of generating practical implementation strategies:
the question has evolved from “what to change” to “where and how to
begin the required change”? What does this change look like in the
day-to-day of city-goers? In more rural areas? How do we drive these
changes for the individual consumer? How do we scale this change across
cities and countries? And how do we make these changes sustainable
enough to stand the test of time?
This panel will tackle these questions by looking at mobility from a
bottom-up approach: considering changes at the city level, impacts on
the persons who inhabit them, and how localized success may eventually
cascade to industrial and commercial mobility. This panel will address
the obstacles and practical steps necessary to reimagine personal
mobility in a net-zero world.
Featured Panelists:
- Nick Albanese – Head of Market Research, Westly Group
- Will Graylin – CEO, Indigo Technologies
- Lynda Tran – Director of Public Engagement and Senior Advisor to
Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg
- Alex Wallar – CTO, The Routing Company
3:15pm – 3:55pm: BREAKAWAY PANEL: The Future
of Nuclear Energy
Governments, civil entities, and private companies continue to migrate
towards carbon neutral practices, driven by concern over increasing
effects of climate change. Migrating to cleaner practices demands that
our supply of energy is generated from non-fossil fuels. Nuclear energy
is an attractive but controversial energy source with reduced
GHG emissions. In the past, politics, social
perception, and rare catastrophes have slowed down the innovation and
adoption of this technology, while solar, wind, and other renewables
have grown rapidly. In recent years, more investment and focus has been
placed into nuclear energy as a strong partner to renewables and an
attractive option to produce synthetic fuels. This panel will span three
pillars of nuclear energy: science, systems and society. It will share
the newest technologies in fission such as mobile microreactors.
Furthermore, it will explore infrastructure and regulation requirements
that need to take place to incorporate nuclear energy into our portfolio
of clean energy sources. Finally, it will discuss the importance of
stakeholder and public commitment to the technology and explore
potential pathways for nuclear energy deployment.
Featured Panelists:
- Moderator: Sonal Patel – Senior Associate Editor,
POWER Magazine
- Jacopo Buongiorno – Director, CANES (Center
for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems), MIT
- Samuel Lee – Acting Director, Division of Security Operations,
US NRC
- Jeff Navin – Director of External Affairs, Terrapower
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts
03/31/2022 at 09:00AM
