Massachusetts Clean Energy Center: Clean Energy and Resiliency Program Overview

Presenters

Opening Remarks:

Massachusetts Clean Energy Center

Ariel Horowitz is senior program director at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC). Ariel directs MassCEC’s market development work related to grid modernization, energy storage, resiliency, and clean transportation. She also oversees much of MassCEC’s work supporting commercialization of new energy innovations by researchers and early-stage companies. Ariel joined MassCEC from Synapse Energy Economics, where she provided expert witnessing services and analytical support to clients including U.S. EPA and state regulators. She holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Tufts University and a bachelor’s of science in engineering from Swarthmore College.

Scope 1:

Converge Strategies

Wilson Rickerson is a principal and co-founder of Converge Strategies, LLC, where he focuses on the intersection of clean energy, energy resilience, and national security. He works with state and local governments, utilities, and the military to deploy advanced energy technologies for emergency preparedness. In Massachusetts, he supported energy resilience analyses for critical community facilities, such as hospitals, shelters, and fire stations under the CLEAR program. Prior to Converge Strategies, Wilson was the CEO of Meister Consultants Group, where he led the company’s U.S. and international energy and climate practice. He is a policy fellow with the Center for Climate and Security and a fellow with the Truman National Security Project.

Scope 2:

Nexant

Sundar Venkataraman leads Nexant’s Grid Modernization Consulting Group. The focus of this group is to provide consulting services related to the planning, development, and operation of distributed energy resources, renewables, and large-scale energy storage projects. Sundar has more than 25 years of experience in providing consulting services related to power systems operations, planning, and markets. Sundar has an M.S. in electrical engineering from Iowa State University and an MBA from Clarkson University. He is the chair of the IEEE Power Systems Operation, Planning, and Economics (PSOPE) Transmission Planning Workgroup, and the U.S. representative for CIGRE study committee C6 on Active Distribution Systems and Distributed Energy Resources.

GE Energy Consulting

Ryan Fox is a senior engagement manager at GE Energy Consulting, where he leads the power system strategy team, a group composed of technically diverse energy industry professionals tasked with tackling a broad range of issues for its customers. In addition to managing this team, Fox supports on a variety of project work. Over the past few years, he has led GE Energy Consulting’s focus on distributed energy and microgrids, managing the group’s MassCEC CLEAR microgrids study and providing financial and economic modeling advisory services on several other microgrid feasibility studies in New York state and elsewhere. He holds an MSF and an MBA from Boston College, and a bachelor’s degree in international finance from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Scope 3:

RAND Corporation

Liam Regan is a technical analyst at the RAND Corporation and coordinator of the RAND Climate Resilience Center. His professional and research interests include energy, technology innovation, climate change, and infrastructure finance. He has a master’s degree in environmental management.

Michael Wilson is an associate policy researcher at the RAND Corporation and professor of policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He is a strategic planner that works with local, state, and federal governments to create frameworks and tools to facilitate participatory decisionmaking under deep uncertainty. His research interests include critical infrastructure and climate change resilience. He has a Ph.D. in urban and regional planning.

Moderated by Linnea Warren May.