Professor Pioneers Research for a Greener Energy Future

Meet Eric Hittinger, Ph.D. 

Associate Professor, Department of Public Policy,
Program Contact, Science, Technology, and Public Policy MS
College of Liberal Arts

With funding from the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation, he works collaboratively with researchers at RIT and around the world to assess the capabilities of new energy technology and design new strategies for policymakers to promote the advancement of low-carbon energy.

Currently, Hittinger is working on multiple research projects, including one that links survey data to electricity grid modeling in order to understand how controlled charging of electric vehicles might benefit the electricity system. Another project intends to build a high-level model of U.S. energy use, based on behavioral data, to study how long-term changes in things like teleworking or online shopping will affect overall energy use.  

Additionally, he holds an International Chair at the University of Lille (France), where he is working with EU researchers to understand the techno-economic opportunities for second life re-use of electric vehicle batteries.

Awards, grants, funding received: 

• "Collaborative Research: Linking Activities, Expenditures, and Energy Use into an Integrated Systems Model to Understand and Predict Energy Futures," National Science Foundation (2023)
• “WILL International Chair: Techno-Economical Study of Second life batteries for Affordable e-mobility          
• campus (TESSA)," University of Lille (2023)
• “Assessing social, behavioral, and economic constraints on plug-in electric vehicle smart charging adoption,” Sloan Foundation (2023)
• "An Integrated Framework for Analyzing Technology Subsidies," National Science Foundation (2018)
• "Collaborative Research:  Ensuring Sustainable Energy Storage Operations in the US Electricity Grid," National Science Foundation (2017)

In the Media: 

• RIT researcher to study energy storage in U.S. grid
• Transforming RIT: The Podcast, featuring Eric Hittinger
• How to design clean energy subsidies that work – without wasting money on free riders, The Conversation 
• Optimizing the U.S. electrical grid