At the MIT Energy Initiative, we engage faculty, researchers, and students from across MIT to advance solutions for the world’s greatest energy challenges.
MITEI sponsors research projects aimed at decarbonizing the global economy and providing secure, affordable energy access for all. MITEI-funded researchers also develop and test pre-competitive technologies and evaluate energy solutions and policies to address the most pressing energy issues.
Research areas
MITEI drives clean energy innovation. Learn about our areas of research.
MITEI's current initiatives
MITEI identifies critical energy and technology challenges where concentrated effort can catalyze rapid progress in the energy transition. Learn about our current initiatives.
Addressing carbon management challenges
Innovation in carbon capture, utilization, and storage, coupled with clear assessments of the technical and economic viability of these pathways, is critical for managing and reducing emissions.
Addressing data center power demand
Managing data centers’ demand for power is critical to ensuring universal access to reliable, affordable electricity.
Advancing sustainable fuels
Sustainable fuels could offer a promising solution for deep decarbonization of long-haul transportation sectors.
Expanding long-duration energy storage
Technologies that enable energy to be stored over extended periods of time are critical to maintaining the reliability and flexibility of the electrical grid.
Improving grid resilience
Enhancing grid resilience is crucial as we face climate change, rapidly growing electricity demand, and shifts to cleaner energy sources.
Standardizing analysis of energy technologies
Standardized methods are needed to establish trust in new technologies and ensure the best approaches are deployed to advance the energy transition.
Funding opportunities
MITEI supports promising energy research from MIT's faculty, researchers, and students across a wide range of disciplines. If you are at MIT and interested in doing energy-related research, whether you are an energy expert or are planning to focus your expertise on energy problems for the first time, we encourage you to explore our research funding opportunities.
Research tools
MITEI has developed a unique and powerful set of energy system analysis and optimization tools to enable stakeholders to model energy system decarbonization pathways and understand how new technologies, policies, and investments in each sector affect the others.
DECARB, released in 2026, is a modular optimization tool for building-level decarbonization and energy management. This tool supports a broad range of stakeholders evaluating how buildings fit into their decarbonization and energy strategies.
HyCAT (Hydrogen Carrier Analysis Tool), released in 2026, estimates the cost and greenhouse gas emissions for long distance hydrogen shipping via hydrogen carriers.
Macro (also known as MacroEnergy.jl) is a planning tool specially designed for utility planners, regulators, and researchers who are trying to understand how electricity grids and other energy sectors might co-evolve given new technologies, policies, and ways of using electricity and energy-intensive commodities. Released in 2025, it is an update to the GenX and DOLPHYN tools.
Projects
MITEI and its member companies and organizations support hundreds of interdisciplinary research projects across the Institute.
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Publications and reports
MITEI delivers comprehensive analyses for thought leaders, policy makers, and regulators.
Featured news
MITEI produces news articles, research reports, and videos that showcase our impact on the world’s energy challenges.
