As one of Harvard’s leading student organizations in climate and clean energy, the Harvard Undergraduate Clean Energy Group serves as a space for students interested in sustainable development. With more than 350 active members, HUCEG offers a vast network of projects and partnerships in clean energy. In the face of what many classify as a global climate crisis, student organizations like HUCEG have a unique role in tackling environmental concerns and laying the foundation for future leadership for the green transition.
HUCEG offers a range of student-led programs, providing various hands-on avenues to engage with climate activism. The Consulting Program pairs teams of students with sustainable energy companies, hoping to offer undergraduates experience in business development while providing exposure to established and emerging organizations in the field. HUCEG has worked with large corporations such as Climeworks and SYSO Technologies, as well as smaller start-ups like Sol Clarity, Better Earth, and SunGreenH2.
HUCEG’s Policy Team provides members with the opportunity to work directly with public officials as they work on innovative, sustainable energy policy projects. One upcoming project is the Energy Affordability Initiative, established in partnership with the Rocky Mountain Institute. Members of this team are looking to decrease the cost of energy for American ratepayers, which currently averages 19 cents per kilowatt-hour nationally.
Another ongoing initiative—the Democratic Energy & Electrification Project—has HUCEG members conducting research alongside various private companies and government programs to discover how Texas can scale its virtual power plant capacity to a higher level. The team is specifically looking to power 16,000 homes.
In the past, the policy team has worked with Massachusetts State Representative Christina Minicucci, who allowed HUCEG to strengthen its relationship with the state legislature.
The Energy Education Team is HUCEG’s newest public service initiative—HUCEG Co-President Lilly Xu ’27 dedicated her freshman spring and sophomore fall to building this program. “At first, we partnered with the [Phillips Brooks House] Cambridge Afterschool program and Environmental Action Committee…to teach kids in elementary school from underserved communities in Cambridge about clean energy,” Xu said in an interview with the Independent.
The initiative was initially part of HUCEG’s Energy Equity Group but has now become its own program. Aimed at empowering future leadership in sustainability, the program will educate Massachusetts high school students about clean energy through a six-week virtual program.
Reflecting on the wide range of opportunities offered, Xu commented on what she finds to be the most unifying aspects of such a large organization. “I’d say that we’re all interested in either working in clean energy or just learning more about it,” she said. “We just want to make an impact within the clean energy and sustainable development space.”
In addition to members of specific groups, HUCEG also has several “social members” who are not part of specific teams, but still attend conferences, speaker presentations, workshops, and other events. “I think everyone here is friends,” Xu said. “We all really enjoy being a part of this… That’s why we have a lot of people who are just social members and not even involved in a program.”
On April 19, HUCEG held its 2025 Clean Energy Summit, “Amped & Wired,” with panels, workshops, and fireside chats concerning innovation in the world of clean energy. The event took place at the Harvard University Center for the Environment, co-hosted by the Columbia Clean Energy Group and in collaboration with the Princeton University Energy Association. Some of the event’s speakers included former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh and Senior Advisor to former President Joe Biden Mike Donilon.
“The summit was a huge success,” HUCEG Co-President Elson Bankoff ’27 said. “This is our first time hosting one. HUCEG is around five years old, and we’ve hosted a joint-policy related summit with the IOP…but this felt more exciting and modern, and we also used it to launch Columbia’s undergraduate energy group.”
Bankoff highlighted the wide range of panelists selected, including members of the Biden administration, a McKinsey & Company Partner, and founders of various startups. “We wanted to saturate the room with really interesting people,” she continued. “We just got all of these cool people who do super different things on panels.”
According to Bankoff, “HUCEG is a group about solutions. Every slide deck you’re making is actually meaningful and is actually helping someone…and is actually helping us get to this end goal that requires so much intersectional work.”
One of the aspects of the summit that Bankoff most appreciated was its spirit of youth and excitement. “You have all of these intense people with intense careers that showed up and were just instantly relaxed and instantly optimistic, and I think that’s something that we really try to do with HUCEG,” she said. “We’re all committed to this—that’s not a question…. Now it’s just [a question of] how we can have fun while we do it.”
Bankoff is confident about HUCEG’s expanding horizons, following the success of this weekend’s event. “It was definitely a pilot episode for what the future will hold for the rest of this stuff,” she said.
Sophie Dauer ’27 (sophiedauer@college.harvard.edu) writes News for the Independent.