Steve Mitnick is Editor-in-Chief of Public Utilities Fortnightly and author of the book “Lines Down: How We Pay, Use, Value Grid Electricity Amid the Storm.”
Here’s an interview we did with Tim Lieuwen, the Strategic Energy Institute’s executive director, and Rich Simmons, a senior research engineer and fellow.
PUF’s Steve Mitnick: What were you trying to do at the conference? Were you able to achieve some of those goals?
Tim Lieuwen, Georgia Tech: At Georgia Tech, we stood up the Strategic Energy Institute in about 2004. So, I think Georgia Tech was the first major research institution to really make an effort to integrate its very broad diverse energy portfolio.
The idea is that it’s a complex multidisciplinary challenge. Universities, like other organizations, typically struggle to break down stovepipes and discipline specialties.
So, the idea was to try to be a cross-cutting organization. I took over this role in 2012. But basically, the job of our Energy Institute is to be a systems integrator for the energy work at Georgia Tech.