Question 1: What technologies are you working with, or have you worked with?

My first foray into energy was as a mechanical engineering student at Mississippi State, where I worked on a team competing for the US Dept. of Energy’s Solar Decathlon competition. I worked on designing the solar+storage system along with the smart meters and internal sensors for our attached housing design. I chose this as I wished to focus on understanding the impacts that introducing distributed energy systems would have on low-and-middle income communities. These systems are often prohibitively expensive for these communities, so appropriately sizing them, ensuring a reliable maintenance plan, and maintaining affordability were critical aspects that I dealt with firsthand. I also learned that current market structures are not conducive to supporting the growth of these clean and reliable energy systems among marginalized communities. This experience, combined with my interactions with the US immigration system has deeply shaped how I see systemic issues. I come from a community in India that often didn’t have continued access to energy, so the challenge of energy justice and energy access is deeply personal.

My perspective has expanded significantly since transitioning from mechanical engineering. Previously, I focused on hands-on experiences with machines and physical system designs. However, my shift towards systems thinking has highlighted the limitations of representing systems solely through physical machinery. I now regularly work with models and optimization tools that contribute to my understanding of public interest technologies. I use coding languages such as Julia and Python to model and analyze electric grids and consider multiple decarbonization scenarios. I utilize these tools to help conduct long-term grid planning, which is a challenge as we transition from a majority fossil-based grid and decarbonize. I also consider nascent technologies such as nuclear fusion in my work to get a better understanding of the possible solutions we may have now and in the future. My work uses open-source models to inform policymakers and private utilities about the most cost-effective and reliable investments that can be made to ensure a reliable grid in the future.

Question 2: How do you take account of MIT’s obligation to pursue the public interest in the work that you do? 

I think it's incredibly important to factor public interest into one’s work, and I personally feel responsible to pursue the public interest within my research. As someone working in energy policy, which has a long history of taking advantage of marginalized communities (siting of coal plants, high bills for low-and-middle income customers, etc.), it’s important to center equity and the public interest as we overhaul and transition a large system that underpins our society. My research in electrical grid modeling focuses on different decarbonization scenarios and grid reliability to ensure that communities do not experience major blackouts and outages during extreme weather events. While my modeling considers different regions, land use constraints, and any policies intended to speed up the transition, it approaches the issue from a very technocratic, top-down perspective. To move beyond this framework, I worked with the MIT Renewable Energy Siting Clinic, which centers the needs of the communities that are often overlooked in the name of the ‘greater public good’. It’s important to keep in mind that as we transition, we should not leave behind communities and trample over their rights to achieve some required speed of the transition. Considering local governments, environmental features, and the needs of communities is critical and also falls under the umbrella of public interest. How we manage these stakeholders and needs to achieve an equitable transition is incredibly important to me, and I find it critical to center these interests in my work to create the energy system of the future.

Broadly speaking of MIT, I strongly believe that it has an obligation to center the public interest in its work. As a premier educational institution, MIT sets an example, not just with students, but also within industry and academia. MIT has a powerful brand which it can use in conjunction with its deep expertise to act as a convener on issues it finds to be critical. MIT’s position within society affords it with a ‘bully pulpit’ from which it can shine a light on issues considering injustice in technology use, energy policy, data privacy, etc. With its reach spanning across disciplines, MIT is uniquely situated to use its resources to center equity, justice, and the public interest and it can drive funding, research, and conversations that can have large-scale impacts. No institution or human is perfect when it comes to taking all the opportunities to center the public interest, and we all have a long way to go.

Question 3: What more could you and others do to help MIT team meet its social obligation to pursue public interest technology?

I think there’s a lot that can be done across the institute to help MIT meet its obligations. I would challenge students, researchers, and professors to often consider a problem from the perspective of another discipline. Increasing collaboration across departments such as mechanical engineering and urban planning could influence both the design and deployment of clean energy technologies. Such collaborations across the institute would enrich the educational experience of students while also breaking the siloed nature of academia. Individually, students can keep pushing the envelope by incorporating new perspectives into their own research, as they’re often the ones who interact the most with the broader community.

Additionally, it would help if people questioned the assumptions and practices that are prevalent in their disciplines. As a policy student, I’ve learned about systemic issues that affect institutions and regulatory bodies today and how certain best practices are rooted in oppressive histories. Technological development is a noble goal, but the pervasive optimism that technology alone can solve all our problems is often misguided, and it is critical that students and researchers at MIT are steered away from a technology-only solution framework. Introducing stricter requirements on humanities and qualitative methods classes that introduce students to real-world societal challenges that are complex and have no silver bullet could be one possible way to increase the visibility of the need for more public interest work at MIT.

Nirmal Bhatt a dual MS candidate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Technology and Policy at MIT. As a researcher at the MIT Energy Initiative, Nirmal studies how to design robust decarbonized grids to ensure a reliable and affordable supply of electricity. Prior to attending MIT, Nirmal completed his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Mississippi State University, where his thesis focused on energy burdens in Mississippi. Nirmal is interested in distributed energy systems, energy policy, energy equity and environmental justice, and immigration policy. Outside of academia, Nirmal is also involved with MIT’s theater community and volunteers for the Hidden Dream, a nonprofit that provides resources to immigrants.