Industry
Industry touchpoints take place throughout the energy landscape at Stanford. The pathway to industry engagement with Stanford’s core energy research efforts and other industrial affiliates programs create significant fundamental research opportunities that address critical global challenges.
Industry Supported Research Programs I Industry Engagement I Centers & Programs I Industry Internship Programs I Industry Resources
Industry supported research programs
Bits & Watts Initiative
Bits & Watts focuses on innovations for the 21st century electric grid. The initiative enables researchers from Stanford to develop a new grid paradigm that incorporates more than 50 percent clean power and distributed energy while assuring grid reliability, security, and affordability. The holistic approach involves engineering, markets, regulations, business models, and policy, all working in sync to form a large functional ecosystem.
Visit the Bits & Watts Initiative website
Natural Gas Initiative
Natural Gas Initiative engages faculty across the university to carry out the many types of research needed to ensure that natural gas is developed and used in ways that are economically, environmentally and societally optimal. The initiative focuses on major advances in natural gas production that have fundamentally changed the energy outlook in the United States and much of the world.
Visit the Natural Gas Initiative website
Net-Zero Alliance (in development)
The Net-Zero Alliance is established as a vehicle for large global companies to form research and educational relationships with Stanford that could provide strategic direction and technology solutions toward a net zero future.
StorageX Initiative
StorageX Initiative brings together Stanford faculty from materials science to computer science to economics to tackle the dominant challenges in energy storage. By addressing gaps between academic and industrial R&D, StorageX aims to accelerate the development and implementation of revolutionary energy storage technologies and concepts.
Visit the StorageX Initiative website
Sustainable Finance Initiative
Sustainable Finance Initiative sees the transition to a new economy dramatically impacting financial risk and opportunity, most notably in energy, agriculture, and mobility. SFI develops innovative policy and finance solutions in collaboration with government and market participants in specific countries and regions with the goal of unlocking capital flows at the speed and scale required to transition toward decarbonization and climate resilience.
Visit the Sustainable Finance Initiative website
Hydrogen Initiative
Hydrogen Initiative is a global community of academicians, industrialists, thought leaders and government officials that convene to advance the use of hydrogen for stable, long-term, low-carbon energy storage that can be transported and utilized around the world across many industries. The group is interested in the hydrogen economy across the supply chain, including hydrogen creation, distribution and storage, and utilization.
Industry engagement
The Precourt Institute’s Energy Engagement Programs offers industry supporters the opportunity to engage not only with Stanford faculty and students in energy, but with senior policymakers, global thought leaders, entrepreneurs, venture fund managers, and non-governmental organization executives. Energy Engagement Programs include the annual Energy Solutions Week conference, Innovation Day meeting and related workshops, and periodic Global Energy Roundtables.
Additional energy centers & programs
Stanford Center for Carbon Storage uses a multidisciplinary approach to address critical CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage) questions related to flow physics, monitoring, geochemistry, and simulation of the transport and fate of CO2 stored in partially- to fully-depleted oil fields, saline aquifers, and other unconventional reservoirs.
Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance explores and advances public policies and financial mechanisms leading to an energy future that protects the environment in an economically sensible way.
Lawyers for a Sustainable Economy is an effort by fourteen private U.S. law firms to provide pro bono legal services to sustainability-focused entrepreneurs and non-profit organizations. $23 million worth of free legal services is available by the end of 2020 to advance sustainability in energy, transportation and land use. Stanford Law School and Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy will facilitate connections between participating firms and potential pro bono clients and track the effort’s impact in support of this effort.
Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy addresses energy policy in the United States and its effects on our domestic and international political priorities, particularly our national security.
The Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) catalyzes and promotes evidence-based knowledge about pressing economic issues, leading to better-informed policy solutions to generate measurable improvements in the lives of all people for generations to come.
Woods Institute for the Environment is the university's hub of interdisciplinary environment and sustainability research and the go-to place for Stanford faculty, researchers, and students to collaborate on environmental research. Their interdisciplinary work crosses sectors and disciplines, advancing solutions to the most critical, complex environmental and sustainability challenges, working toward a future in which societies meet people’s needs for water, food, health and other vital services while sustaining the planet.
TomKat Innovation Transfer Program offers opportunities to Stanford University faculty, staff, and students in commercializing breakthrough technologies and innovations in sustainability. Teams of Stanford students and faculty advisors compete for the grants to develop prototypes, to refine business plans, and to conduct customer trials and market research. The program helps participants develop a business-centric approach through Stanford resources, like the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network. The TomKat Center introduces teams to relevant entrepreneurs, executives with experience in startups, and venture investors. Mentors for each funded project provide guidance as the teams assess market opportunities, plan the commercialization of their inventions, and prepare to externalize their product.
Energy internship programs in industry
TomKat Center energyStartup Summer Internships - The TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy has two internship programs. The objectives of the summer internships are for students to gain work experience, develop applied engineering knowledge, learn entrepreneurship in a startup environment, and build upon their academic studies. The TomKat Center offers a limited number of paid summer internships to Stanford undergraduate students at exciting Stanford-affiliated sustainable energy startup companies. The TomKat Center works with several exciting sustainable energy startup companies to help recruit talented Stanford undergraduate and master's students for paid summer internship positions.
CareerEd - Stanford Career Education engages with students to help them design their career pathways, venture into new opportunities, and pursue their job search. There are a number of meaningful ways in which industry can explore student engagement.
Stanford Energy Club serves as the central hub connecting students to energy-related networks, resources, projects, and research all across Stanford. The SEC aims to empower the Stanford student community with the knowledge, experiences, and opportunities to become energy leaders of tomorrow. The Stanford Energy Club welcomes support from sponsors to help put on a vibrant portfolio of educational events and student opportunities each year. If your team is working on the cutting edge of the energy industry and is interested in supporting the SEC’s efforts please connect with the SEC leadership.
Graduate School of Business Energy Club fosters connections between students at the GSB, across Stanford, and in the energy community. We host speakers and panels that are open to the public, offer career resources to Stanford students, and hold exclusive events for GSB club members.
Inquire about creating internship opportunities for Stanford students in energy at your company.