About

12:00pm - 1:45pm, Snyder Forum

Hear 11 Yale students present the summer work they did with clean energy organizations across the world. Lunch will be served.

2:00pm - 2:10pm, Zhang Auditorium

2:15pm - 3:15pm, Zhang Auditorium

What challenges are well established organizations in the clean energy space facing in their work? How are they overcoming them? Attend this event to find out, and to help them find answers to difficult questions.

3:30pm - 4:30pm, Zhang Auditorium

We’ve heard from the well-established organizations, now let’s hear from the startups! Hear pre-scale and currently scaling cleantech entrepreneurs share their innovative ideas that are bringing the clean energy future into the present.

4:30pm - 6:00pm, Snyder Forum & Student Commons

Sponsored by ClimateHaven and FML CPA’s.

Our conference reception is in collaboration with ClimateHaven’s quarterly Green Drinks event! You’ll get to connect with even more folks passionate about the clean energy transition and climate tech.

All attendees, speakers, sponsors, and organizers are invited to attend our happy hour reception to close out the first day of the conference. Appetizers and drinks will be served.

Join Connecticut Innovations and the Yale Center for Business and the Environment on Thursday, November 5, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Geronimo (271 Crown Street, New Haven, CT 06510) for our annual networking event following the first day of the Yale Clean Energy Conference.

After a full day of programming, continue the momentum over light bites and drinks with fellow climate tech leaders, investors and innovators shaping the future of clean energy. This event has become a conference tradition, and we’re excited to bring it back this year.

Unfortunately, due to space restrictions, students are not eligible to attend this event.

Registration is required. Register to attend here: https://connecticutinnovations.swoogo.com/cleanenergy 

We’ve made reservations at area restaurants for attendees to continue their conversations after Thursday’s content events have concluded. Join fellow attendees in groups of 8-10 to casually chat and network on over New Haven eats. In informational emails you will receive in the weeks leading up to the conference you will have the opportunity to sign up to attend one. These optional events are self-funded and not paid for by the conference. Sign-up link will be emailed to conference registrants.

8:00am - 9:00am, Student Commons

Kick off your full day of events Friday with breakfast (fruit, yogurt, pastries, gf and vegan options, coffee, tea)

9:00am - 10:15am, Snyder Forum

Speaker: Sushil Verma, i-ans capital

India’s rapidly growing energy demand presents significant opportunities to expand renewable generation, storage, and supporting infrastructure. At the same time, investing in India’s energy transition requires navigating a range of market, regulatory, financial, and execution risks. This interactive workshop will examine what makes clean energy projects in India investable and how developers, investors, lenders, and policymakers can mitigate key risks. Participants will engage in discussion to explore issues such as regulatory and policy uncertainty, currency exposure, land and permitting, grid constraints, and access to capital. The workshop will also discuss what it takes to move projects from attractive opportunities to bankable investments.

The session is participatory and accessible to attendees at all levels of familiarity with the topic.

9:00am - 10:15am, Classroom 2400

Speakers: Katrin Kärner, International Atomic Energy Agency; Ben McIntosh, U.S. State Department; Staff Sheehan PhD ‘15, Project Omega; Antonios Zoulis, Blue Energy

The panel will consist of speakers from different perspectives, including industry and government/international institutions, focused on the role of uranium and critical-mineral supply chains in enabling the expansion of nuclear energy.

10:20am - 11:50am, Zhang Auditorium

11:50am - 1:00pm, Student Commons

1:15pm - 2:45pm, Zhang Auditorium

This keynote event is part of SOM50, a celebration of the Yale School of Management’s 50th anniversary of educating leaders for business and society. Speakers are SOM alumni leading clean energy development across the nation: Reid Buckley, Co-Founder and Partner, Orion Renewable Energy Group, (MPPM ‘89), Jaime Carlson, Head of Commercialization and Market Risk, SB Energy, (M.B.A., M.E.M. ‘09), Sarah Slusser, Founder and Managing Director, Point Reyes Energy Partners, (M.B.A. ‘88), Jahi Wise, Lecturer, Yale Center for Business and the Environment, (J.D., M.B.A. ‘16).

As energy demand rises and the energy landscape evolves, developing new clean energy projects has never been more important—or more complex. This conversation examines the policy, permitting, financing, and stakeholder dynamics that determine which projects move forward and which stall, offering an insider’s perspective on how energy infrastructure gets built in today’s environment.

Hosted by the Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY) as part of the 2026 Yale Clean Energy Conference, this keynote also marks CBEY’s 20th anniversary and celebrates two decades of Optimists Taking Action. Join us for this timely conversation, and stay for a full day of insights, connections, and discussions shaping the future of clean energy.

3:00pm - 4:15pm, Snyder Forum

Speakers: Ashish Kapoor, The Piedmont Environmental Council; Louise White, The Commonwealth of Virginia; Akshyah Krishnakumar, Amazon Web Services

The rapid growth of data centers, accelerated by the rise of AI, is reshaping US energy demand. For those working on the clean energy transition, this presents a tension: data centers are both a massive new grid load and a potential driver of renewable energy investment. 

This workshop brings together stakeholders whose perspectives rarely share the same stage: state energy policy, environmental advocacy, and the technology sector. Topics will include the pace of data center energy demand, governance questions around grid-level tradeoffs, and what it would take for data center growth and the clean energy transition to reinforce rather than undermine each other. 

The session is participatory and accessible to attendees at all levels of familiarity with the topic.

3:00pm - 4:15pm, Classroom 2400

Speakers: Jim Kennedy, Peak Energy, Kasim Khan, Wood Mackenzie; Truman Mak, MEM ‘14, CATL

Lithium-ion (LFP) batteries dominate grid storage today, but rising power price volatility, data center load growth, and tariffs on LFP batteries are opening the door to alternatives. This panel will discuss where technologies like long-duration storage and sodium-ion sit on the adoption curve, and when a developer or utility would choose them over lithium-ion. The conversation will cover what makes a new storage technology bankable, how companies are managing supply chain and policy risk, and where power market rules fall short. Panelists will also reflect on how much further these technologies are than the market recognizes and remaining barriers to commercialization.  

4:15pm - 5:15pm, Student Commons

Friday, 3:00pm - 4:15pm, Room 2220

Invitation only event for Yale alumni in clean energy development.

Friday, 4:30pm - 5:00pm

All FDCE and CEED completers, participants, staff, and lecturers are invited to take a group photo together to commemorate the 2026 Reunion!

Friday, 5:15pm - 7:00pm, 2nd Floor Concourse

Invitation only reception for Yale alumni, FDCE and CEED completers/participants, speakers, sponsors, and organizers.

A campus tour for FDCE and CEED ticketholders.

Meet at 10:45am at the Yale Visitor Center, 149 Elm Street, New Haven, CT 06511

Followed by lunch at a famous New Haven pizzeria!