Into The Future

An expert from the United States is helping a Chinese firm build an energy road map. Liu Xiangrui reports.

US energy expert John Lemmon says joining a Chinese research institute was the result of a "prefect match of timing and expertise".

Since 2015, he has been working as the director of Distributed Energy Technologies at the National Institute of Clean-and-Low-Carbon Energy, an R&D facility funded by the State-owned Shenhua Group.

The 53-year-old is a member of China's Thousand Talent program, which aims to bring in overseas experts to boost the country's high-tech industries.

Previously, Lemmon served as a program director for the US Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy, managing projects related to power grids.

"My job here is to create a road map of technologies to meet both Shenhua's and the country's goals," says Lemmon.

The goals, he explains, include creating future electric grids.

After obtaining his PhD from Oregon State University, Lemmon began his career at General Electric's Global Research Center, where he worked on a portfolio of programs, including polymers, hydrogen storage, fuel cells and energy-storage technologies. He has been granted more than 60 patents in the United States, including one for a lithium-battery technology.

Lemmon first visited China in 2005 while still working for GE, and participated in a few projects in the US company's research lab in Shanghai. His field - energy storage - became a focus area of conferences in China at the time, and he started paying more visits to present his projects and help organize several such conferences.

Lemmon says he had heard about the National Institute of Clean-and-Low-Carbon Energy when it was founded in 2009, because several of his former colleagues and friends worked there.

"But at that time, I didn't match my career (plan) with what NICE was doing very well," he recalls.

At an international conference in the US, Lemmon met Wei Xu, CEO of NICE, whom he knew from his GE years. Wei expressed his organization's desire to start new efforts in energy distribution and invited Lemmon, who was just finishing his previous contract, to join.

Lemmon says they almost immediately reached an agreement during a break in the conference.

"I was at a point in my career when I wanted to do something that had significant impact on the world. I'd like to see some of my technologies actually impact the trend," he says.

Lemmon spent a couple of evenings thinking over the proposal. He admits he first felt uncertain about working in a foreign country, where he would face a language problem.

But once he got here, he says he had little difficulty adapting to the corporate culture at NICE, because people in leadership positions in the facility had been to Western countries to study, and the management was also Western.

Instead of focusing on mostly the technological side as was his job before, NICE provided Lemmon a chance to learn about the sales of products, too.

"I've been able to see the broader picture of the business side. It's been a very good experience."

Tang Kun, manager of the battery material department at NICE, says Lemmon's expertise has been very helpful for their team.

The institute was previously working on a lithium-sulfur battery project and was trying hard to make a breakthrough.

But Lemmon advised them to temporarily suspend the direction and instead shift their efforts to research lithium metal electrodes.

Lemmon had experience reviewing the directions of projects related to energy storage while working in the US and has good professional judgment, Tang says.

Lemmon has worked with US research teams on similar projects that encountered technical problems, which couldn't be solved within a short period of time.

"We couldn't understand him at first. However, we gradually realized the challenges he pointed out as our experiments went deeper. So we adjusted our research direction, and the progress has been smooth," Tang says.

Lemmon says that relationships among colleagues here are strong. He often goes out with his Chinese co-workers to visit various areas around Beijing. Or they have dinner and play sports together after work.

"He's always passionate and positive," says Tang, adding that as a foreigner, Lemmon has tried to blend in.

He has a Chinese name and performs Chinese songs at the company's annual gala.

"Our goal is to establish Shenhua as a technical leader in the world," says Lemmon.

He has played a role in helping the company grow internationally, through organizing international conferences and inviting professors from top universities to collaborate with NICE.

Lemmon says he has observed drastic changes in the industry in China since his first visit.

"All the major economies in the world now want to move to a cleaner energy source. And there is a strong pull for China, as the second-largest economy and with a large population and fast growth, to clean the air and water," he says.

"There are policies from the central government to meet these goals, and we want to drive our research in that direction to meet those policy goals (as well)."

He says the industry he works in is a driver of the economy and is directly related to cutting carbon emissions. The current challenge is to strike a balance between available technology and economic costs.

That's why the projects focus on affordability and viability, he says, adding that an electric grid is a more complicated system than most people think, and it takes a long-term vision to transform it to make it both green and cost-effective.

Contact the writer at liuxiangrui@chinadaily.com.cn

Top: A wind farm in Yancheng city, Jiangsu province, operated by the Shenhua Group, one of the country's forefront runners in green energy. Min Jiazhen / For China Daily Above: US expert John Lemmon takes advantage of his expertise in the energy industry in his work at the National Institute of CleanandLowCarbon Energy, an R&D facility funded by the Shenhua Group. Photos Provided To China Daily