Our 2025 Clean Energy Vision: Tried-and-True or Innovative Unproven Frontiers?

Recently Joel Makower asked whether organizations should focus their scarce resources on deploying tried-and-true clean energy efficiency technologies – or push the boundaries of technology innovation to open up unproven new clean energy frontiers? When he consulted Amory Lovins and Venture Capitalist Matthew Nordan, both argued strongly for each case. “We focus a lot more on getting the job done, getting stuff installed and getting it installed cheaply, because opportunity cost matters,” Lovins urged. Nordan countered that the last “clean tech innovations” (solar and nuclear) date from the 1950s – so the “innovation reservoir for energy generation is being harnessed but not renewed.”

At Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), the University pursues both routes: with a clean energy campus-wide performance that was so strong it recently earned funding from the carbon markets, RIT’s quest for clean energy efficiency has been pioneering. Yet inside its clean tech innovation center, RIT also prototypes the future of energy storage, seeking to transform technologies such as the next-generation batteries needed to power our cars and homes. Read on to learn how RIT’s pursues its clean tech innovation pathway.

So where does you clean energy vision lie – with driving efficiency performance or clean tech innovation?

What’s your focus? And why? Share your clean energy vision pathway with us in conversation at #cleanenergyu.

And join Joel Makower, RIT’s VP of Research Ryne Raffaelle, and his research scientists – along with clean tech entrepreneurs and leading campus efficiency experts – to debate how all these dimensions can best deliver on our 2025 clean energy visions!

Rochester Institute of Technology, Prototyping the Future of Energy Storage:

What does clean energy leadership mean and why does it matter? To me, clean energy leadership means to take a stand to help transform our energy infrastructure and work to support renewable energy development and deployment. We are basically living in a world that is powered in a very unsustainable way that is creating pollution at a rate that is already generating dire consequences for our planet. Status quo ceased to be an option some time ago.

Our vision for a clean energy future by 2025 is one in which renewable electrical energy generation is cost-competitive without Federal subsidy throughout the majority of the continental U.S. Achieving dramatic reduction in the use of fossil-fuel energy sources by 2025 is essential to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to a more sustainable energy portfolio.

There are several actions we are currently taking to lead towards such a #cleanenergyu future. In addition to our continued efforts to improve the efficiency, sustainability, and reliability of photovoltaic devices and systems, this past March, the Rochester Institute of Technology cut the ribbon on a new Battery Prototyping Center. Our new Battery Prototyping Center will provide researchers and entrepreneurs a bridge between their fundamental R&D efforts and the manufacture of real commercializable devices and demonstration.

Cost-effective and efficient energy storage systems are a great enabler in the use of renewable energy generation in our grid and transportation systems. By integrating energy storage into PV and wind solutions it allows stored renewable energy to be used in mobile applications and in instances when demand does not correlate with generation. The new Battery Prototyping Center will help pave the way for multiple Universities and start-ups to demonstrate new energy storage technologies in commercial formats capable of powering the next generation of grid storage, portable electronics, and electric vehicles.

Getting renewable to reach parity with today’s energy production methods will require a multi-faceted approach which balances both cost and function. Having cost effective energy storage doesn’t just mean cheaper batteries. In today’s energy market, batteries need to be capable of fast charging and discharging, have extended calendar life, long cycle life, and require low maintenance. Other key market factors driving adoption of energy storage technologies are electricity load leveling and peak shaving. These can be huge economic drivers reducing the ROI of the systems for both industries and Universities. The energy storage technologies being developed at the Battery Prototyping Center are addressing all of these issues at the material and system level.

Being a part of the University dialogue about energy storage and sustainability has proven how powerful the concept of clean energy can be to the next generation of students. I have not seen a better subject to motivate, excite, and galvanize young scientist and engineers than that of clean energy. It really gives me tremendous hope for the future.

More information about the RIT Battery Prototyping Center can be found at: http://www.rit.edu/batteries

So how are your organizations engaging in clean tech innovation towards a #cleanenergyu future by 2025?

Join the #cleanenergyu conversation with Joel Makower, RIT and other leading campus and clean energy experts to share your stories – and your vision for how to secure clean energy by 2025!