Robert Klee, commissioner of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), visited UConn’s Center for Clean Energy Engineering (C2E2), where he listened to researchers discuss their work and the progress being made at the center.

After Prabhakar Singh, director of the Center for Clean Energy Engineering, gave an overview of the work conducted at C2E2, a series of presentations were made on specific research.  George Bollas, assistant professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, spoke on his work with chemical looping combustion; post-doc Timothy Myles presented research on reactive spray deposition technology, pioneered by Radenka Maric. Peter Luh, SNET Professor of Communications & Information, spoke about the future of microgrids.

“It’s great that you have such a breadth of expertise and work with a multi-disciplinary approach,” Klee said.

After touring the C2E2 plant, Klee gave a talk at Lauren Hall on the future of energy and the environment in Connecticut. While the state is facing many challenges, Klee said, these challenges also lead to new opportunities like the creation of C2E2. The students, he said, were the future “Gates, Jobs and Zuckerbergs” of energy and the environment.