Holger Teichgraeber

Holger Teichgraeber is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the department of energy resources at Stanford, working with Prof. Adam Brandt on energy systems optimization. His research focuses on optimal infrastructure planning to achieve future electricity systems with low carbon emissions. The goal is to develop computational tools that can inform policy decisions. Future electricity systems will rely significantly on renewable energy, which is time-varying and requires novel modeling approaches to include high temporal resolution. Holger specifically uses machine learning and optimization to investigate how temporal resolution in these large-scale models affects their outcome, which is used to make policy recommendations.

Holger grew up in Germany and holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering with focus in energy and process systems engineering from RWTH Aachen University, and an M.S. in energy resources engineering from Stanford. He furthermore completed the Stanford Ignite program in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Holger has worked as an analytics intern on utility-scale battery deployment at Doosan GridTech in Seattle, as a research intern modeling electricity markets worldwide with respect to wind power at Vaisala in Seattle, and on reducing carbon emissions in existing coal power plants as an engineering intern at Europe's second largest utility RWE in Germany. Holger has received several academic awards including the Stanford Graduate Fellowship and the Stanford Centennial Teaching Assistant Award, and he is an alumnus of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation.

An engineer by training, Holger is interested in applying his analytical mindset from a systems perspective to energy and environmental issues and seeks to extend his experience beyond science and technology. Holger has been excited to drive community change through policy from young age, starting in middle and high school, when he represented the 40,000 adolescents of his hometown Krefeld as president of the Youth Council in front of the City Council and the general public.