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Climate Change Mitigation Challenge

Mitigating Climate Change through Innovative Energy Storage Applications

Overview

The transition from humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels to renewables is key to climate change mitigation.  Energy storage is necessary to achieve such goals.  With the advent of electric vehicles, we can see the transition beginning. You are tasked with developing a new application where energy storage will help revolutionize how humanity is powered.

Objective

The overall objective is to accelerate adoption of energy storage to enable wider use of renewables, and this can be achieved by new applications or novel products that make it easier to use batteries.

Project Goal

Your goal is to develop a novel application of battery technology that lowers reliance on fossil fuel.  For example, can we electrify food carts, ferries, camping equipment, or replace diesel generators, or develop new charging infrastructure, or disconnect homes from the grid?
 

Problem Definition & Specifications

Assume you have between $10 million and $10 billion to spend, depending on market size.  You must pair the right technology with the application.  Applications should have impact as measured by reducing CO2 emissions or indirectly by inspiring society to think differently about renewables.

Assessment

Your efforts will be judged according to:  

  • Creativity of application; 
  • Technical design; 
  • Technology Readiness Level (we can’t wait long for GHG emissions to drop); 
  • Total potential reduction of CO2 emissions at full scale (some markets are bigger than others);
  • Sustainability of project, as measured by economics (a $100K battery may not work in a home storage application);  and,
  • Coolness factor (for example, a cool car can transform how society thinks and how readily widespread adoption will occur.  We then change the world by making them affordable).