Research and analysis

Priority updates

Encourage and help MITEI’s members to fund more energy research with MIT faculty

In FY25, MITEI raised more than $30 million in multi-year commitments from new and renewing members. This funding supports MIT researchers in advancing MITEI’s mission of accelerating the energy transitionand also sponsors research by undergraduate and graduate students and postdocs. Our Member Relations team actively seeks to grow research funding by bringing in new members, and by working closely with existing members to conceive and execute new research projects MITEI has a regular process of engagement with its corporate members. Through facilitated meetings with faculty, scheduled events covering many technologies, and customized workshops involving teams of MIT principal investigators (PIs), MITEI discovers topics of interest to its members and identifies opportunities for substantive collaborations with MIT researchers. Research takes the form of both sponsored  projects by individual companies and jointly sponsored activities in areas of mutual member interest. Leveraging MITEI’s existing administrative infrastructure, we are able to quickly initiate new projects with researchers across the MIT campus when we find a match between capabilities and member interest. Where we identify new strategic areas of focus, we build the collaborative foundation for future work in critical areas such as data center power, low-carbon fuels, and long-duration energy storage.

Address the data center problem

In 2023, data centers consumed about 4.4% of the total electricity supply in the United States. With the burgeoning number of data centers, the demand for energy is projected to far exceed the power supply in the future. The growing energy demand from data centers was one challenge MITEI recognized when we identified the theme for our 2024 Annual Research Conference as, “A durable energy transition: How to stay on track in the face of increasing demand and unpredictable obstacles.” A panel discussion with key stakeholders examined this topic more deeply at the MITEI fall conference. The 2025 Spring Symposium, “AI and energy: Peril and promise,” continued that exploration by looking at the key challenges and opportunities at the nexus of AI and energy. For broader audiences and to help inform the public on this urgent issue, we also published an article highlighting the data center/energy challenge and a brief video featuring MITEI Director William H. Green explaining the issues we currently face.

In FY25, MITEI began exploring the launch of a members’ interest group focused on the urgent energy needs arising from the rapidly growing demand for electricity for data centers. The Data Center Power Forum, launched in early FY26, is leveraging MITEI’s established expertise and leadership in convening multiple energy sectors to consider a timely and complex issue facing many companies.

Organize better assessments of new energy technologies

The true potential of new technologies to address energy and climate challenges is too often obscured by inconsistent approaches, assumptions, or valuations within techno-economic analyses and lifecycle assessments. This failure erodes trust and undermines promising technologies in the eyes of investors, policy makers, and the public. In collaboration with the MIT Climate Project, MITEI is committed to defining best practices and standards for assessing the technical and economic viability and evaluating the climate benefits  of new energy technologies. This is critical to empowering stakeholders to make clear, data-backed decisions about the new technologies meriting support. We have recruited renowned researchers in techno-economic and emissions assessment to serve on a steering committee. The first meeting was held in early June 2025. Under the leadership of MITEI Director William H. Green, and Elsa Olivetti, the Jerry McAfee Professor in Engineering, the goal of the Consistent Lifecycle and Economic Assessment Recommendations (CLEAR) effort is to develop state-of-the-art assessment approaches that can produce reliable, robust results grounded in trusted principles and data.

Research highlights

In July 2024, Randall Field was named director of research to guide MITEI’s energy systems research and strengthen collaboration with other MIT research teams. Field is the former director of MITEI’s research consortium, the Future Energy Systems Center, and was one of the first employees of MITEI at its inception in 2006. In August 2024, Morgan Andreae (PhD ’06) was named as the new executive director of MITEI’s Future Energy Systems Center.  MITEI’s research portfolio reflects our primary objective of decarbonizing the global economy with low-carbon technologies and through integrated energy systems supported by effective policy. Our work is guided by the use of advanced system modeling and analysis techniques to assess the feasibility of decarbonization technologies and pathways, against the backdrop of the energy system as a whole, from an economic and technical standpoint. MITEI also assesses the total lifecycle emissions of these technologies. MITEI’s three in-house research scientists have deep expertise in techno-economic analysis and lifecycle assessments for energy transition technologies and approaches. They frequently bring this expertise to joint projects conducted with researchers in MIT’s engineering and science departments, particularly in the areas of grid design and management, data center power, low-carbon energy sources, and sustainable transportation.

With both member and philanthropic funding, MITEI launched 69 research projects in FY25 totaling about $22 million. The focus area of new projects in FY25 that garnered the most research support was electric power, which includes both grid management and design and power generation, with funding of $9.16 million. The balance of FY25’s research funding was allocated to support a range of other energy topics, including carbon management, low-carbon fuels, and energy storage. With support from its members, as well as numerous foundations, donors, various state and federal government entities, and university partners, MITEI has supported 1,078 projects from its inception through FY25.

Funding for early-stage research

In FY25, seven early-stage research projects submitted during the annual MITEI Seed Innovation Fund call were funded for a total of more than $1.2 million. Over the last four cycles, just over 30% of the projects receiving MITEI seed funding have been related to batteries or storage, demonstrating the importance of innovation in energy storage if renewable energy is to reach its full potential in helping to decarbonize the energy system. Through FY25, MITEI has supported more than 226 energy-focused seed projects with grants totaling $29.8 million.

The Future Energy Systems Center

In August 2024, Morgan Andreae (PhD ’06) was named executive director of MITEI’s Future Energy Systems Center, MITEI’s member-funded research consortium and a vital component of MITEI’s research program. The Center funded 20 new projects in FY25, with topics ranging from the hurdles facing small modular nuclear reactors in industrial settings to the interplay between hydrogen production and renewable fuel synthesis. The Center’s research portfolio aims to foster and inform interdisciplinary energy research across MIT, accelerating progress toward a net-zero carbon future. Using techno-economic and lifecycle analysis to examine energy pathways in different sectors, the Center enables its corporate members to explore and develop strategic energy plans, taking into consideration technology, economics, and policy.

• Future Energy Systems Center projects: The 20 new Future Energy Systems Center projects funded in FY25 bring the number of system modeling and analysis projects underway or completed within the Center to 53. MITEI kicked off meetings for the 10 newest projects at the Center’s September 2025 Workshop. Our latest call for project proposals was sent to MIT’s 1,300 PIs in July 2025, and a new cohort of projects is being selected in the fall.
• Future Energy Systems Center meetings and workshops: In May, the Future Energy Systems Center held its spring workshop to address timely energy topics of interest to our members. Topics included deep geothermal, an improved business case for new fission power plants, and how policy reversals shape the U.S. and international energy landscape. The Center also held its advisory committee meeting and hosted student presentations and a poster session.
• Future Energy Systems Center webinars: The Center hosted 17 webinars in FY25, as well as four lightning talk sessions. The webinar series is a platform for MIT researchers from across departments to share insights on emerging technologies, policy developments, and sustainability challenges by highlighting the latest updates from their Center-supported projects.

There are 36 Future Energy Systems Center members. The member companies span four continents and are involved in many industries, including energy, utilities, automotive, semiconductors, mining/metals, chemicals, telecommunications, infrastructure, insurance, and engineering/construction. MITEI is also in discussion with a number of prospective members.

Studies and reports

The role of fusion energy in a decarbonized electricity system, published in September 2024, showed that fusion energy could be a major contributor in future electric power systems and identified what is required to achieve that potential. The report was based on a one-and-a-half-year study examining the factors likely to shape the deployment and utilization of fusion energy. This study applied a multi-disciplinary approach using techno-economic analysis and modeling to investigate the factors, such as cost and climate policy, that will impact the deployment of fusion power plants. Several key findings emerged from this study:

• Fusion has a potential societal value in the trillions of dollars in a decarbonized world.
• The scale of fusion deployment in the electricity system will depend on fusion power plant costs.
• The scale and timing of fusion deployment in different regions of the world will be driven by economic growth, population density, electrification needs, regional costs, decarbonization targets, relative prices of electricity, limitations of fission-based nuclear generation, and resource availability for other low-carbon technologies (wind, solar, and biomass).
• The scale of fusion deployment in the electricity system will highly depend on the availability and cost of other low-carbon technologies and on how tightly carbon emissions are constrained in the future.
• Key cost drivers for fusion power plants include reactor equipment cost, regulatory considerations, and operations and maintenance costs.