As CEO and founder of Mainspring Energy, Shannon Miller leads the design, manufacture, and commercialization of a breakthrough fuel-flexible power generation product that can switch between fuel types, including clean fuels such as hydrogen, ammonia, biogas, and renewable natural gas, as well as traditional fuels.. The technology is uniquely designed to firm solar and wind, increase resilience, and accelerate the transition to the zero-carbon power grid. By delivering resilient, dispatchable, sustainable, and low-cost electricity for power grids and commercial and industrial uses, it can solve significant decarbonization challenges in meeting aggressive climate goals.
Mainspring’s technology builds on concepts Shannon co-developed in a Stanford thermodynamics lab to accelerate the transition to the zero-carbon electric grid. Following a decade of development and testing, Shannon and her team began deploying their new product, called the Mainspring Linear Generator, in 2020 to power the facilities of Fortune 500 companies and utility grid installations. To fund R&D and rapidly scale manufacturing and deployment, she has raised more than $530 million in financing from world-class clean energy investors including Khosla Ventures, Bill Gates, and more.
Shannon leads Mainspring with a collaborative and inclusive leadership style that actively welcomes diverse perspectives. She holds a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford, where she was a National Science Foundation Fellow and received funding from the Global Climate Energy Project to advance her research. She was named Energy Central Champion in Innovation and received the U.S. Department of Energy C3E Award 2022 in the Entrepreneurship category for her clean energy leadership.