Sixth annual Energy Week at Penn set to focus on AI, climate action on campus

Penn’s sixth annual Energy Week is set to take place from Monday, Feb. 23 to Friday, Feb. 27.

Since 2019, the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and the Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology have co-hosted a week of workshops, tours, panels, and discussions centered around climate and energy solutions. This year, the week’s key focus is on how the rising use of artificial intelligence and growing demand for data centers affect the energy landscape.

According to Executive Director of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy Cornelia Colijn, this year’s programming aims at “building on momentum from past years,” by highlighting topics relevant to current events.

“We have more faculty research on energy transition than ever before, and steadily increasing student interest,” Colijn wrote to The Daily Pennsylvanian.

This renewed focus, she explained, reflects the “urgent” nature of the energy transition. She added that this year’s Energy Week will feature partnerships with engineering, law, chemistry, anthropology, business, and arts organizations.

Nadine Gruhn — who serves as the Managing Director of the Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology — explained that Energy Week is catered towards a broad audience, from students highly involved in energy research to those “who want to learn something.”

“We all understand that energy is very tied to climate and sustainability,” Gruhn said. “So it gives us an opportunity to take a broader view of everything that the Penn community is doing related to the energy transition and how that connects to climate and sustainability, not only in our research and our scholarly activities, but also just our day-to-day actions on campus.”

Colijn emphasized the addition of film studies to this year’s programming, which includes a screening of “King Coal” on Tuesday.

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