ZERO Lab Princeton University

Jesse Jenkins

Associate Professor, Principal Investigator
Jenkins-headshot

Jesse D. Jenkins is an associate professor and macro-scale energy systems engineer at Princeton University with a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment.

He leads the Princeton ZERO Lab (Zero-carbon Energy systems Research and Optimization Laboratory), which focuses on improving and applying optimization-based energy systems models to evaluate and optimize low-carbon energy technologies, guide investment and research in innovative energy technologies, and generate insights to improve energy and climate policy and planning decisions.

Dr. Jenkins earned a PhD in Engineering Systems and SM in Technology & Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, worked previously as a postdoctoral environmental fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, and spent six years as an energy and climate policy analyst prior to embarking on his academic career.

Dr. Jenkins has published more than 45 peer-reviewed papers to date in high-impact journals including Science, Nature Energy, Joule and Applied Energy. He served on the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine expert committee on Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System, was a principal investigator and lead author of Princeton’s landmark Net-Zero America study, and leads the REPEAT Project, which provides regular, timely, and independent environmental and economic evaluation of federal energy and climate policies as they’re proposed and enacted. His scholarship and teaching at Princeton have been recognized with the Howard B. Wentz, Jr. Junior Faculty Award and the Princeton Engineering Research Council Award for Excellent in Teaching and received multiple commendations from the Princeton School of Engineering & Applied Sciences for outstanding teaching.

Dr. Jenkins has delivered invited testimony to multiple Congressional committees and his research is frequently featured in major media outlets. His work guiding, shaping and evaluating American efforts to transition to clean energy was profiled in the Wall Street Journal, recognized with inclusion on the 2024 TIME100 Next list of the next 100 leaders shaping the future and TIME100 Climate list of the most influential climate leaders, Vox.com’s 2023 Future Perfect 50 list of thinkers, activists, and scholars working on solutions to today’s (and tomorrow’s) biggest problems, and Environmental News Record’s 2022 Top 25 Newsmakers list. 

Dr. Jenkins is also co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Firma Power, where he leads development of the Firma OS optimization and decision support software suite. Firma Power delivers load-enabling portfolios of clean firm power to accelerate time-to-power, simplify origination, and manage risk for large electricity users.

He also regularly provides technical analysis and policy advice for non-profit organizations, policy makers, investors, and early-stage technology ventures working to accelerate the deployment of clean energy. Dr. Jenkins currently serves on the advisory boards of Eavor Technologies, Rondo Energy, Dig Energy and Karman Industries, and is a scientific and technical advisor to Energy Impact Partners and MUUS Climate Partners. He is also the co-host of the podcast Shift Key on the energy transition and the shift away from fossil fuels, published by Heatmap News.

Connect with Prof. Jenkins on LinkedIn or BlueSky.

For an introduction to Jesse’s work, he recommends the following resources: 

  • For a wide-ranging discussion on Jesse’s research and approach to macro-scale energy systems modeling and decision support, listen to his appearance on the Voltcast podcast in March 2021 with host and environmental journalist David Roberts.

Curriculum Vitae (last updated May 20, 2025)

Publications

Toward more transparent, high-resolution, stakeholder-engaged energy-transition decision-support modeling

 Technology Review for Carbon Neutrality, 2026
Jesse Jenkins
10.26599/TRCN.2025.9550022
Improved modeling approaches to support decision making are needed to help accelerate the transition to low-carbon energy systems. We offer insights into improving energy transition decision support modeling, drawing on our experience with the Net-Zero America (NZA) project and analogously designed ongoing projects led by researchers in Australia, Brazil, China, India, Republic of Korea, and Poland. The NZA study was impactful because of 1) uniquely high spatial, temporal, sectoral, technological, and socio-economic modeling and visualization using objective, transparent, and scientifically rigorous methods and 2) complementary policy-actionable bridging analyses informed by transparent and unusually extensive engagement with a broad set of stakeholders. The NZA approach established a new standard for high-resolution energy-transition decision support modeling, but further improvements in methods and tools are needed. A foremost need is improving optimization modeling so that it better reflects on-the-ground realities and risks associated with efforts to deploy energy technologies and infrastructure at the scales and pace needed to achieve mid-century net-zero emissions goals.  

Flexible Data Centers: A Faster, More Affordable Path to Power

 Report (Camus, Encoord, Princeton ZERO Lab), 2025
Jesse Jenkins,  Wilson Ricks
Download Published Version
How flexible grid connections and bring-your-own capacity speed up the path to grid power and ensure data centers cover incremental costs.

Direct air capture with thermal energy storage: process design and electricity system impacts

 Journal of Physics: Energy, 2025
Aniruddh Mohan,  Hongxi Luo,  Jesse Jenkins,  Vinay Konuru
10.1088/2515-7655/ae24ac
Large-scale deployment of direct air capture (DAC) will lead to significant demand for heat and electricity. Supplying heat and electricity can result in significant emissions if served by carbon-intensive sources of energy. This is a particular concern because DAC is capital intensive and likely to be run at close to maximum output. This makes it challenging for DAC plants to be powered solely by cheap, intermittent, clean sources of power such as wind and solar.We undertake an interdisciplinary study combining process engineering with a detailed macro-energy system optimization model to evaluate the site and system-level costs of combining high-temperature thermal energy storage (TES) with DAC. TES has the ability to decouple the timing of thermal consumption and power generation, allowing DAC’s thermal loads to be served through electricity from intermittent renewable energy. We compare solid sorbent-based DAC plants combined with TES to solid sorbent-based DAC facilities with grid-powered heat pumps. We use the region of Texas as a case study. We find that DAC plants with TES are roughly 3% more expensive but incentivize greater investment in clean electricity sources on the power grid, resulting in substantially lower indirect emissions. As a result, the net cost of carbon removal for DAC with TES, after accounting for indirect emissions, is up to 30% cheaper than DAC facilities with grid- powered heat pumps. Overall, we find that the indirect power system emission impacts from deployment of DAC are not trivial and can range from 10%–25% of gross DAC removals. Coupling DAC with TES can eliminate these indirect emissions.  

Powering through the storm: estimating electric grid resilience using a power system cyclone impact model

 Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability, 2025
Arielle Rivera,  Avery Barnett,  Greg Schivley,  Jesse Jenkins,  Luca Bonaldo,  Qian Luo
10.1088/2634-4505/ae17e8
Climate change is expected to increase the severity of hurricanes and tropical storms, posing significant risks to the electricity grid. These include downed power lines, damaged solar panels, and impaired wind turbines from high winds. New York (NY) and New Jersey (NJ) are not spared from these vulnerabilities and must strengthen their infrastructure and mitigate social and technical impacts. Clean energy mandates, such as NJ’s Executive Orders No. 315 and 307 (100% clean energy by 2035 and 11 GW of offshore wind by 2040), and NY’s Executive Order No. 166 (40% emissions reduction by 2030), add urgency to ensuring grid resilience under extreme weather. This study demonstrates the Power System Cyclone Impact Model (PCIM), used alongside the GenX electricity system planning tool, to assess grid resilience under hurricane-induced high wind speeds in the NY and NJ region. Results reveal that onshore and offshore wind could contribute additional power during storms, provided transmission and storage systems remain operational. This output helps offset outages elsewhere in the grid across all storm categories. In contrast, solar emerges as a vulnerability due to combined impacts from wind stress and cloud cover, significantly reducing generation during and after storms. Thermal generators show the lowest failure rates, though this may partly reflect current model limitations, as only wind stress and cloud cover are considered, excluding hazards like flooding. Non-served energy costs vary with electricity demand and fluctuations in wind and solar output. July stands out as the most vulnerable month, due to high demand and limited wind generation, leading to higher NSE. This research provides a first step toward understanding storm-related grid resilience in NJ and NY. The PCIM model is designed to be generalizable, with future work focused on expanding its scope to include additional hazards like storm surge and flooding, and more storm-prone regions.