MITEI's Future Energy Systems Center is an industry research consortium delivering actionable insights for navigating the energy transition based on multi-sectoral analyses of emerging technologies, changing policies, and evolving economics.
About
The Future Energy Systems Center examines the accelerating energy transition as advances in technology and policy, shifting demographics, and changing economics reshape energy supply and demand. Through integrated, systems-level analysis, the Center provides insights into the complex, multi-sector transformations affecting power and transportation systems, industry, and the built environment.
Our work draws upon MIT’s strengths in traditional energy disciplines, as well as cross-disciplinary fields such as energy and environmental policy, climate science, carbon management, energy economics, behavioral science, cybersecurity, information technology, and artificial intelligence.
Value
The Future Energy Systems Center serves as a single point of entry into MITEI and the MIT energy research community at large. Member companies include both energy suppliers and consumers demonstrating the impact decarbonization is having on a wide range of industries.
The Center integrates techno-economic and systems-oriented research, enabling a comprehensive, whole-system analysis of the energy landscape across interconnected focus areas. These include power generation, grid management, energy storage, sustainable fuels, transportation, industrial processes, carbon management, policy, and the built environment.
Our work rests on two pillars: MITEI’s world-class range of capabilities in energy system modeling and analysis; and the cutting-edge campus-wide energy technology research program overseen by MITEI, spanning all of MIT’s departments, as well as our affiliated policy research centers including the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research and the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy. By combining deep expertise in technology and modeling, we assess the potential of emerging supply- and demand-side solutions. The Center works to identify what will and will not work alongside evolving policy to shape the future energy system, while uncovering new opportunities, risks, and critical research gaps across industries.
Center members:
- Help shape the Center’s research portfolio
- Engage with MIT research teams and other industry leaders
- Have access to a members-only website with exclusive content and resources
- Receive timely analysis, including cutting-edge research findings and insights
- Participate in monthly webinars addressing emerging technologies, energy policy, and sustainability issues
- Attend Future Energy Systems Center workshops to engage with current and emerging research projects and connect with experts from academia, government, and industry on priority topics in an interactive setting
- Attend Energizing@MIT: MITEI’s Annual Research Conference, framing the latest technology, economic, and policy drivers shaping the energy landscape
- Attend MITEI’s Spring Symposium, offering a deeper understanding of a timely energy transition topic
How to propose a project
MITEI's Future Energy Systems Center accepts project proposals from MIT researchers and faculty twice annually, in the late winter and in the early summer.