Mike Ferry
University of California, San Diego
Director of Energy Storage & Systems
Center for Energy Research
Seminar Information
The world is on a renewable energy building spree, installing 1 gigawatt (GW) of new solar and wind generation capacity – equivalent to a large nuclear fission reactor – each and every day. At the same time, the growth of the global electric vehicle market is causing, in the words of Scott Keogh, President and CEO of Volkswagen, “one of the biggest industrial transformations probably in the history of capitalism.” The world already produces 10x more lithium-ion batteries than it did just five years ago, and it will be producing 10x more than that just five years from now. As a result, batteries are poised to transform the two largest sectors of the global economy, the transportation and the power sectors, that are responsible for the majority of carbon dioxide emissions. Yet despite these unprecedented successes, the world still remains on a trajectory to exceed the international targets of limiting global warming to 1.5 and even 2.0 degrees Celsius by century’s end. However, those targets are within reach by trends that can be set this decade, with solar, wind, and batteries leading the way.
Mike is the Director of Energy Storage & Systems at the UC San Diego Center for Energy Research (https://cer.ucsd.edu/), with research and activities focused on the development and deployment of advanced energy storage technologies and the integration of renewable generation, including the promotion of multi-disciplinary frameworks to enable large-scale storage and renewable energy adoption. Prior to joining UCSD, Mike spent six years as Senior and Program Manager at the Center for Sustainable Energy (CSE), directing a diverse portfolio of clean energy initiatives including advanced energy storage, smart grid technologies, distributed generation, and electric transportation research and incentive programs. While at CSE, Mike oversaw the Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP), the nation’s largest behind- the-meter distributed generation and energy storage incentive program, and launched the California Air Resources Board (CARB) Clean Vehicle Rebate Project (CVRP), the nation’s largest zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) incentive program responsible for administering over $1B dollars in consumer incentives since March 2010. Mike’s previous work also includes electric vehicle charging infrastructure development, vehicle-grid integration (VGI), and second-life EV battery research. Mike holds a Master of Science degree from the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley.