Association of Energy Engineers Student Chapter at Arizona State University®
We’re the energy club
at ASU.
Officially: the ASU student chapter of the Association of Energy Engineers. In practice we bring in people who work in energy, run workshops, get out to see real sites, and throw a hackathon in the spring. Any major, no dues. Come to one thing and see if it’s for you.
01 / What we are
Energy isn’t one major. It’s power systems, buildings, batteries, chemistry, software, markets and policy, and most of the interesting problems sit where those overlap.
So our members come from engineering, sustainability, business, computing, science and policy. You learn plenty in class about how energy is supposed to work. This is where you find out what people in the industry are dealing with right now.
That looks like workshops, speakers from industry and from ASU labs, site and lab visits, competitions, and meeting people you’d have a hard time emailing cold.
02/What we cover
Six areas we keep
coming back to.
- 01
Power & Grid
How electricity gets made, moved and paid for, and what it takes to keep the Arizona grid up in August.
Grid reliability · Utilities · Transmission · Distributed energy
- 02
Renewables & Storage
Solar and batteries, and the problems that show up once you try to run a whole system on them.
Solar & PV · Battery systems · Storage economics · Interconnection
- 03
Buildings & Efficiency
Auditing, measurement and controls. It's what AEE's certifications are built on, and it's usually the cheapest energy you can save.
Energy audits · HVAC & controls · Measurement · Retrofits
- 04
AI & Data Centers
Data centers are showing up faster than new generation can. Forecasting, siting, cooling, and what all of it means for Phoenix.
Load growth · Forecasting · Cooling · Siting
- 05
Materials & Manufacturing
Semiconductors, power electronics, and the materials work that sets the ceiling on how efficient a device can be.
Semiconductors · Power electronics · Energy materials · Fabrication
- 06
Markets, Policy & Startups
Rate design, regulation, and the companies being built around them, including the ones getting started here in Arizona.
Energy markets · Regulation · Startups · Finance
03/Why now
The numbers moving underneath all of this
We put this here because it’s the honest reason the chapter exists. Arizona is one of the places where the next decade of the grid gets decided, and it is happening while you’re in school. Every figure below is sourced and dated — click through and check us.
Arizona
38% → 8%
Coal's share of Arizona's electricity generation, 2014 to 2024. The Navajo Generating Station, once the state's second-largest power plant, closed in 2019, and the last coal mine in Arizona shut the same year. An entire fuel left the state's mix inside a decade.
EIA, Arizona State Energy Profile ↗·July 2025 (2024 data)
3,900 → 7,700MW
Battery storage in Arizona: roughly 3,900 MW operating, with another 3,807 MW planned to come online by 2026. The state's storage fleet is set to about double in two years.
EIA, Arizona State Energy Profile ↗·July 2025 (May 2025 inventory)
30,000MW
Data center interconnection requests sitting in Arizona Public Service's queue, against a system that peaks around 8,200 MW. Most of that will never get built — but deciding which part does is the job.
27%
Share of Arizona's electricity generated by Palo Verde alone — the largest power plant in the state and the second-largest nuclear plant in the country. It supplies about 4% of all US nuclear generation.
EIA, Arizona State Energy Profile ↗·July 2025 (2024 data)
4th
Arizona's national rank in solar generation, behind California, Texas and Florida, off nearly 9,000 MW of capacity. Solar passed hydroelectric here for the first time in 2017 and reached 13% of total generation in 2024.
EIA, Arizona State Energy Profile ↗·July 2025 (2024 data)
3 of 3
APS, SRP and Tucson Electric Power all broke their all-time peak demand records in the same week in August 2025. Every major utility in the state, at once.
Utility Dive ↗·August 2025
And beyond
4.4% → 12%
Data centers used 4.4% of all US electricity in 2023. Berkeley Lab puts them at 6.7–12% by 2028 — 176 TWh growing to somewhere between 325 and 580 TWh in five years.
Berkeley Lab / DOE ↗·December 2024
4 years
US electricity demand has now risen four years running — the first time since 2007, and the strongest four-year stretch since 2000. The flat-demand era that most of the grid was planned around is over.
EIA ↗·January 2026
70GW
New solar capacity behind EIA's forecast that US solar generation grows 21% in both 2026 and 2027 — the largest increase of any source.
EIA ↗·January 2026
Figures are as published on the dates shown. They move quickly, and we re-check them each semester. If you spot one that has gone stale, tell us and we’ll fix it.
04/What's happening
Coming up
Nothing on the calendar right now. Discord is the fastest way to hear about the next one, or add yourself to the roster on Sun Devil Central.
05/From the chapter
The biggest thing we’ve done so far
Competition
ASU Energy Hackathon
April 18–19, 2026 · EDC 117
Our 24-hour energy hackathon. Four tracks, real challenge statements from industry, mentors on the floor overnight, and judging Sunday morning.
- Format
- 24 hours, prototype-first
- Tracks
- AI, Software, Hardware, Efficiency
- With
- The IEEE student branch at ASU
06 / Research
There’s a lot of energy research at ASU. Most students never find it.
Grid and power systems, solar, batteries and storage, power electronics, energy materials. Most of it is within a short walk on the Tempe campus.
Nobody really explains where to look or how to write the email, so we put the directories, the funded programs and the first steps in one place.
Join
You don’t need an energy background. Just be interested.
Undergrad, master’s, PhD, any major — engineering, sustainability, business, computing, science, policy. Show up to one thing and see if it’s for you.