GreenAI wins Rep. Robert Menendez’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in New Jersey’s Eighth District

When asked what inspired the creation of GreenAI, Sarah Ji said, “I had just been on a trip to Alaska, and all throughout the vacation, people had been commenting about how the glaciers were steadily retreating because of climate change, and I was tired of this spiel, so I diligently researched clean energy and sustainability, until I stumbled upon Carbon Intensity (CI). Everyone at school knows about carbon footprint, but most people don’t have time to radically change their habits to make an impact, including me. So, when I read how the energy makeup in the grid fluctuates throughout the day so there are times when there’s a higher share of green energy compared to fossil fuels, I wondered, ‘Does this mean that people can use energy from greener sources, just by using their appliances at certain times?’ I did some general calculations to support my theory.

“Using a formula, over many iterations, I found that the percent difference can reach 35%. Could people reduce their CO2 emissions by 35% by using their energy-intensive appliances at the lowest CI hours? Since I was an avid app developer, I came up with GreenAI to share this fascinating idea: I would recommend users to use their energy-intensive appliances during low CI hours so that they have the chance to reduce their carbon emissions without dedicating huge amounts of time to drastically changing their energy usage habits. After all, living sustainably takes effort and time. For example, shopping for more ‘sustainable’ foods means finding farmers markets with less plastic packaging. Transporting more sustainably would mean finding Citi Bike racks, planning bus routes, or catching the light rail. These take considerably more effort than simply changing when you use your dishwasher, and letting the Carbon Intensity forecast do its job. How do I get a Carbon Intensity forecast? No free data exists for future Carbon Intensity. So, I decided to build one using a Generalized Additive Model from Facebook Prophet, creating the foundation for GreenAI.”