By: Juliette Quenioux | July 2022

Akshat Kasliwal (M.S. '19) has devoted his career in energy and sustainability towards the implementation of triple bottom-line solutions on larger and more systemic scales. His experiences have ranged from working for Shell and Ford Motor Company, to now advising power sector stakeholders on infrastructure investments and strategy at PA Consulting. 

An ongoing project of his has been supporting Invenergy’s development of their 800-mile Grain Belt Express transmission line. Spanning from Southwestern Kansas to Indiana, the high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) line will carry clean, affordable, and reliable power to millions of people, reducing both greenhouse gas and energy costs for residents in the Midwest and elsewhere. 

By relying on wind and solar resources, Kasliwal notes that “this project will create local and regional economic and health benefits, all while taking into account stakeholder and community input along its development life cycle.” It is projected to create thousands of jobs, reduce GHG emissions by millions of tons, and add low-cost power to utility portfolios. His team’s independent analysis projects that Grain Belt Express will reduce Midwesterners' electricity costs by billions of dollars over its life, and will serve millions of residents.

“[I find it] very gratifying when my work is able to support and facilitate actionable real-world solutions that simultaneously maximize benefits to people and the planet, without compromising on profitability.” 

Kasliwal also maintains that “my two years at SEAS were the best of my life, in that they were all that I had hoped for (and much more).” He reflects that SEAS enabled him to refine his knowledge of the technical and engineering aspects of infrastructure systems, as well as pick up on the financial, commercial, and political facets of the energy and mobility sectors. He describes the projects he was involved with at SEAS—on topics such as flying and AV cars, circular economy, and Scope 3 GHGs—alongside being part of an academically and socially diverse cohort, as “life-changing experiences that taught him transformative lessons.”

Kasliwal’s unwavering passion for moving the needle on the sustainability transformation shines through with his involvement on high impact projects, and makes him excited for future endeavors. He wishes he had more hours in a day to work on the development of all possible renewable energy projects, and he encourages others to “never lose sight of the big picture,” adding that “all other challenges (and opportunities) in our lives are dwarfed by those stemming from climate change!”