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New E-ffiliates Members
—Art Cullen
2021 E-ffiliates Retreat: Making the Rapid Switch to Net-zero Carbon Emissions
To successfully slash greenhouse gas emissions, the United States must ensure rural communities benefit from producing solar, wind, biofuels, and other low-carbon fuels, experts said at the annual Princeton E-ffiliates Partnership Retreat on June 3, 2021.
The E-ffiliates Retreat focused on execution challenges, stakeholder perspectives, and energy modeling techniques as they relate to a clean energy transition. It explored findings from a Princeton study, Net-Zero America (NZA), released in December 2020, which mapped out five technological pathways for the United States to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The study found that utility-scale carbon capture technology, high-voltage transmission lines, swaths of solar and wind farms, and biofuel plants all must be deployed rapidly, and that the Midwest is an ideal location for much of that infrastructure. On a panel about stakeholder perspectives, Art Cullen, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter and editor of The Storm Lake Times in northwest Iowa, said that this transition could become a form of restorative justice for the country, and one that is both affordable and necessary to help farmers who were economically squeezed by the industrialization of corn and hog farming by large conglomerates.
Over the last 10 years, the Andlinger Center has built a corporate membership program, Princeton E-ffiliates Partnership (E-ffiliates), that enables researchers to connect with companies to foster transformational changes in energy and the environment. Here are highlights from the program’s first decade.
2012
The Princeton Energy and Environment Corporate Affiliates Program launches in the 2011-2012 academic year, with the announcement of PSEG as its first member.
Southern Company, DuPont, and Lockheed Martin become E-ffiliates members.
The corporate affiliates program’s inaugural Annual Meeting, “Synergize”, is held in November. Michel Di Capua, head of U.S. Analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, is the keynote speaker.
2013
The Princeton Energy and Environment Corporate Affiliates Program formally becomes Princeton E-ffiliates Partnership (E-ffiliates) in spring 2013.
FERC commissioner Cheryl LaFleur speaks at the second Annual Meeting.
Archewild, a full service ecological restoration company, joins E-ffiliates.
CHARTER MEMBERS
2014
E-ffiliates welcomes Princeton Power Systems, a designer and manufacturer of energy storage, microgrid and electric vehicle charging systems, as a new member.
Power Survey Company, now Osmose, a utility services company, joins E-ffiliates.
2015
ExxonMobil joins as a charter member of E-ffiliates, supporting projects on organic photovoltaics, battery storage, plasma physics, and other energy topics.
2016
Associate director for external partnerships, Lynn Loo, is appointed director of the Andlinger Center, effective July 2016, and brings her passion and commitment to expanding corporate collaborations to the role.
GENERAL MEMBERS
— Geeta Thakorlal The event brought together energy modelers, policy researchers, leaders in infrastructure and finance, and community representatives to discuss how the United States could minimize greenhouse gas emissions and, ultimately, how to release into the atmosphere Geeta Thakorlal only as much greenhouse gas as is captured and stored each year. NZA showed that energy crops could be grown to produce hydrogen or electricity and could provide a diversified source of revenue for farmers who grow corn today. Experts said deploying these technologies requires more than just technological readiness; it requires social and political acceptance also. Geeta Thakorlal, president of digital and energy transition at Worley, a global construction and engineering firm and E-ffiliates member, said the world cannot continue to execute projects in the same ways because they are too complex and slow. Projects consistent with net-zero goals should be expedited. In addition, experts posed that integrated assessment models, like those used in the NZA study, allow researchers to account for nonfinancial outcomes, such as reduced air pollution, which help address several political and social challenges. These options may not appear as the lowest-cost option but may provide overlooked benefits that could make a pathway more desirable and viable than previously thought.
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
NRG Energy, an integrated energy and consumer services company, and Siemens, a technology company focused on industry, infrastructure, transport, and healthcare, join E-ffiliates.
American Tower, an international owner and operator of wireless and broadcast communications infrastructure, joins E-ffiliates to collaborate on research on self-sustaining microgrids for communications sites. American Water, a public U.S. water and wastewater utility company, joins E-ffiliates.
In the keynote address of the center’s seventh Annual Meeting, N.J. Governor Phil Murphy, sketches his plan to bring new technologies to the state, including significantly expanding offshore wind. A group of more than 100 experts from academia, government, and industry convene to begin a project called Rapid Switch focused on identifying bottlenecks to a global energy transition.
Applied behavioral science company, Evidn, joins E-ffiliates to collaborate on studies of the psychological components of climate action. Community Energy, a U.S. renewable energy developer, joins E-ffiliates to tap into energy systems analysis expertise.
Andlinger Center renews its partnership with ExxonMobil.
AFFILIATE MEMBERS
E-ffiliates expands into new sectors. Mercator, a sustainability-focused asset management firm, and 2150, a venture capital firm, join as members.
NEC Labs America, a global industrial lab, and Deloitte, a multinational professional services network, join E-ffiliates.
Princeton’s Net-Zero America project results inspire Worley, a global construction and project management firm, to join E-ffiliates as a charter member and support a Net-Zero Australia study.
Teppakorn/ stock.adobe.com
–Barry Rand
E-ffiliates Expands
Princeton E-ffiliates Partnership added five members to the program over the 2020-21 academic year, bringing in companies in consulting, private equity, and venture capital for the first time. Interest was piqued by Princeton’s NZA study and other research on energy systems and transitions. Please see pages 10 and 11 to learn more about the study.
Worley
Worley, a global provider of engineering, procurement, and construction services that operates in 48 countries with 50,000 employees, joined Princeton E-ffiliates Partnership as a charter member, with a desire to help move the world to carbon neutrality through its vision for sustainable projects and operations.
The company, headquartered in Australia, provides services to private and public asset owners and operators in the energy, chemicals, and resources sectors in the United States and around the world. Worley builds, consults on, provides the technology behind, and helps maintain chemical plants, solar farms, pipelines, and other energy and non-energy infrastructure. Through its E-ffiliates membership, Worley is seeking to improve project delivery approaches to accelerate the energy transition and, to achieve this, is supporting a new Net-Zero Australia (NZAu) study, using Princeton’s Net-Zero America study as a model for assessing ways a country can effectively decarbonize its economy. The project is a collaboration between researchers at the Andlinger Center, University of Queensland, University of Melbourne, and Nous Group.
Deloitte
Deloitte, the largest professional services firm in the world and one of the four largest accounting firms in the United States, joined E-ffiliates to tap into Princeton’s expertise on energy systems and transitions. The company aims to develop a roadmap to a low-carbon future for the chemicals and specialty materials sectors, among others. The partnership provides a way for Princeton to collaborate on the challenges of accelerating a clean energy transition with a company deeply connected to diverse businesses and operations around the world. Research may focus on how to transform supply chains, processes, and facilities to meet environmental goals.
NEC Labs America
NEC Labs America is an industrial research lab that supports the product and commercial vision of NEC Corporation. With research efforts on topics ranging from sensing to machine learning to 5G networks, it fills a niche between academic research and corporate research and development. The new partnership builds on the company’s previous work with Princeton University faculty on atmospheric sensing technology and will expand to include areas such as energy systems and decarbonization technologies, artificial intelligence and privacy, 5G networks, cyber security, and robotics.
Mercator Partners
Mercator Partners is a sustainability-focused asset management firm based in Princeton, New Jersey, that invests principally on behalf of institutions into transportation, power generation, and manufacturing. Mercator is now looking to deepen its understanding of pathways to decarbonization across the economy and to help identify investment opportunities to facilitate a clean energy transition.
2150
2150 is a global venture capital firm focused on funding sustainability startups. 2150’s name refers to the technologies that the company hopes to support: innovations that will help ensure an environmentally prosperous 2150.The company is looking to support technologies that will reduce emissions and improve the quality of life for people in cities.
