Answering the Challenges of Modern Energy
Energy challenges define our world. From global competition and lightning-quick advances in technology to climate change and fossil fuel depletion, crises in production and consumption threaten our environment, our prosperity, and our future. Now more than ever, it is imperative that we face these energy challenges head-on.
At the Delaware Energy Institute, we’re wedding experts across fields, industries, and the globe to advance efforts in energy discovery, development, and policy. Together with the University of Delaware and other partner institutions, the Delaware Energy Institute aims to marshal science, engineering, and public policy expertise in new and emerging energy technologies.
Energy generation, consumption, and costs are issues that affect every single person on our planet. Driven by our passion and united in our mission, together we can expand our knowledge, shape our future, and transform our world!
Our Approach
People Power
Our mission is fueled by people. Every day, more than 250 affiliated researchers are hard at work advancing knowledge in energy policy, catalysts, solar power, and more.
Collaborative Focus
Teamwork helps us achieve new heights. The Delaware Energy Institute leads a broad coalition of instituted, programs, companies and initiatives to help advance renewable energy research.
The Next Generation
By sharing knowledge, we invest in our future. Delaware Energy Institute’s education and workforce development activities focus on teaching and enhancing skills essential to an energy-dependent world.
Our Research
For more than five decades, researchers at the University of Delaware have been leaders in advancing energy-driven fields, from photovoltaics and catalyst innovation to fuel cell science and wind power technology. Today, we proudly continue this tradition of world-class energy discovery. Through our centers, institutes, and key partners, the Delaware Energy Institute is coordinating inquiry into a wide variety of energy-related fields:
Efficiency
Efficiency
New technology has the ability to transform our lives and significantly benefit the environment. Our researchers are engineering technology that could reduce the amount of energy required for transportation, heating, and more.
Consumers, businesses, and governments can remain productive while leaving a smaller carbon footprint. We are committed to finding the ways to make that happen.
Renewability
Renewability
Instead of petroleum, what if planes and jets could be powered with corncobs and woodchips?
Delaware Energy Institute’s scientists are seeking to answer clean energy challenges in innovative ways. By establishing novel and dependable methods to replenish energy sources on a human timescale, we are leading the charge to a renewable future.
Materials
Materials Discovery
From supercomputers and wind turbine blades to orthopedic therapy and spacesuits, advanced materials are integral to our modern life.
Delaware Energy Institute’s engagement in material discovery helps to:
- make hi-tech composites more affordable, reliable, and functional
- incubate new businesses by providing students with entrepreneurial environments
- offer industrial partners broad, in-depth levels of research expertise
Energy Policy
Energy Policy & Economics
The importance of energy goes far beyond the laboratory. By bridging the knowledge gaps between a variety of disciplines, Delaware Energy Institute aims to link research and advocacy.
We partner with and support centers focusing on topics such as:
- climate action planning
- sustainable development
- conservation
Innovation
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
The engine of creativity drives our science, empowering individuals to use knowledge and experimentation to improve the world.
From nurturing innovation startups and forming industrial partnerships to improving the efficiency of energy, fuel, and chemical production, Delaware Energy Institute uses creativity and collaboration in tandem with science and scholarship to address grand energy channels, one idea at a time.
Centers
Centers & Partners
RAPID
RAPID (Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment) is a Manufacturing USA Institute, led by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). RAPID’s role is to develop breakthrough technologies and processes that boost energy productivity and efficiency and decrease environmental impacts, especially related to chemical manufacturing. The University of Delaware was selected to lead major research projects in this effort. Learn more about RAPID at: https://dei.udel.edu/rapid/
ENERGY RESEARCH CENTERS
- Center for Catalytic Science & Technology
- Center for Composite Materials
- Center for Fuel Cells & Batteries
- Institute of Energy Conversion
- Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation
- Center for Research in Wind
- Center for Plastics Innovation
- Center for Clean Hydrogen
- Mid-Atlantic Industrial Assessment Center
ENERGY PARTNERS
Focus Areas
Photovoltaics
Catalysts for fuel production
Lightweight composites for fuel-efficient vehicles and wind turbines
Chemical reaction engineering
Energy efficiency and conservation
Energy and environmental policy
Fuel cell science and technology
Wind power
Grid-integrated vehicle technology
Energy storage
To learn more about the Delaware Energy Institute, visit our Centers and Partners page.