Investing in our future – the path to net zero

This hybrid event is taking place at Prince Philip House, 3 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5DG and will be streamed live on LinkedIn.

‘Innovation Incoming: Clean energy technology for the future’ will see four industry-leading voices, including this year’s MacRobert Award winner Ceres Power, come together to discuss the UK’s role in enabling a sustainable future as we strive to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The event, hosted by Hannah Prevett, deputy business editor of The Times Enterprise Network, will include insights from panel of leading experts, including:

• Dr Caroline Hargrove CBE FREng, CTO at 2023 MacRobert Award-winning Ceres Power, a leading developer of high efficiency fuel cell and green hydrogen technology. Caroline previously worked at McLaren Racing, where she pioneered the simulation of human-machine interaction leading the development of the first F1 simulator.
• Professor Sir Richard Friend FREng FRS at the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge. His research encompasses the physics, materials science, and engineering of semiconductor devices made with carbon-based semiconductors, which have found significant applications in LEDs, solar cells, and electronics.
• Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer FRSE FRSC FRSA is champion and director of the UK Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre that forms part of the UK Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge focused on accelerating the transition to net zero of industrial clusters and establishing the first world net-zero industrial cluster.

• Pippa Gawley, Founding Partner, Zero Carbon Capital. Pippa and her co-founder Alex Gawley founded Zero Carbon Capital in 2019 with the mission of alleviating the lack of funding for deep tech climate startups. She believes decarbonisation is the biggest opportunity to remake our world to be cleaner, greener and more equitable.

Dr Caroline Hargrove, Chief Technology Officer at Ceres Power, said: “The UK is a science and technology powerhouse; as a nation we have invented some of the world’s best technology that we see all around us today. At Ceres, we believe the same can be true of hydrogen and fuel cell technology. 

“We have an incredibly talented team of nearly 500 scientists and engineers, pioneering electrochemical technologies that are enabling the world’s most progressive companies to deliver clean energy at scale and pace. And we need to succeed, to ensure that we can deliver a net zero future for our families, for society and for all our benefit.”

The discussion will cover some of the most promising green energy technologies as well as several of the biggest obstacles or challenges that need to be overcome for these to be adopted at the scale and pace required. Is this the critical moment for a mass rollout of hydrogen fuel cells for energy generation and storage? How can clean energy innovations raise the funds they need to scale? Those joining in-person and online will be able to engage with the panel on these questions and more. 

To register for this discussion, visit the Royal Academy of Engineering website.