Presenter: Dr. Dharik S. Mallapragada from MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI)
Time: Oct 24, 2023, from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm. A light lunch will be served after the talk. (Please arrive 15 minutes earlier).
Location: Schlumberger Doll Research, One Hampshire Street, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
Abstract: Economy-wide decarbonization efforts are expected to heavily rely on wind and solar-based electricity generation to reduce emissions from the electric power sector as well as widespread electrification of many end-uses across transport, buildings and industry. Both these strategies will increase the spatial and temporal variability in energy supply and demand that complicates system operations and necessitates technological and market innovations to ensure reliable and cost-effective supply of low-carbon electricity. At the same time, for end-uses where electrification is currently impractical, there is a need to identify flexible and scalable processes for enabling electricity use or alternative emissions reduction strategies that can complement grid decarbonization efforts, such as low-carbon, low-cost production and utilization of hydrogen and cost-effective carbon dioxide removal.
In this talk, Dr. Mallapragada will present research contributions from his group at MIT, around modeling to support low-carbon energy systems planning and operations as well as development of enabling technologies. First, he will discuss how process flexibility could impact the cost-optimal design and operation of carbon capture technologies integrated with power generation. The analysis will highlight the pivotal role of process operational flexibility to facilitate cost-effective integration with an increasingly renewables-dominant power system. Second, he will discuss the techno-economic outlook, emissions impacts and scalability of commercially available low-carbon hydrogen production pathways, including electrolytic hydrogen and natural gas reforming with carbon capture. In the last part of the talk, Dr. Mallapragada will showcase the use of multi-vector energy system models to quantify the value and design space of emerging energy technologies.
Biography: Dharik S. Mallapragada is a Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), where he leads the Sustainable Energy Transitions (SET) Group. Dr. Mallapragada’s research focuses on planning and operating resilient, low-carbon energy systems as well as conceptualization, design and integration of emerging energy technologies. In these efforts, the SET group contributes to methodological advancements in data-driven modeling of physical systems, data analytics and optimization, as well as techno-economic and life cycle analysis. Prior to MIT, Dr. Mallapragada spent nearly five years in the energy industry working on a range of sustainability-focused research topics. He recently served as a member of the Massachusetts Commission on Clean Heat, and serves on the advisory committee for the Open Energy Outlook project , a multi-institution effort to create open-source energy systems models and data sets. He also co-leads systems thrust activities at the Center for Decarbonizing Chemical Manufacturing using Sustainable electrification (DC-MUSE), led by NYU. Dr. Mallapragada holds a M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University and a B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India. He will be joining the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering department at NYU as an assistant professor in January 2024.
TCC Restriction: This presentation should not contain any material related to US Embargoed Countries or US Sanctions to Russia or any other country, still if anyone is invertedly connected and is working with a project or people related to these groups we ask you to not participate in this event.
Virtual attendance option is available. Please contact Sangcheol Yoon (Ysangcheol@slb.com). Click "Register Now" button below to register.