Our Team

Pacific Energy Institute has selected a group of non-resident Fellows comprised of accomplished practitioners and researchers who can add the most value, rather than selection by organizational affiliation, in order to advance our mission globally.

Fellows

Eric Ackerman

Eric Ackerman

Eric Ackerman is the former chief strategist at the Edison Electric Institute for retail energy delivery, providing national leadership on issues involving adaptive business strategy and alternative regulation. He is an expert on business and regulatory policy issues associated with grid modernization, the growth of distributed energy at scale, and the changing role of utilities in the market. Eric has focused on key issues related rate reform, new market rules, regulatory models that allow increased pricing flexibility, new resource planning and next-generation performance based regulatory incentives. He began his energy career as managing editor of Energy Digest, a Washington-based trade newsletter covering developments involving energy R&D, and energy policy. Eric holds a BA from Tufts University and an MBA from George Washington University.

Ezra Beeman

Ezra Beeman

Ezra Beeman is Managing Director of Energeia, a specialist consultancy with offices in Davis, California, and Sydney, Australia. He has 20+ years of energy industry experience specializing in rates, distributed energy resources, EVs, hydrogen, and electricity distribution in Australia, Europe, and the US. His previous utility experience includes various roles at Ausgrid, the utility serving Sydney, Australia. He also previously worked for Cambridge Energy Research Associated (now S&P) in their Oakland, California, and Paris, France offices. Ezra holds a Masters of Applied Finance, Macquarie University, and Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College, United States.

Brenda Chew

Brenda Chew

Brenda Chew is the Director of Product Management at Virtual Peaker. Virtual Peaker is a consumer energy resource aggregator that is leveraging IoT and smart home technology to address system flexibility needs and decarbonization. Previously, she was the Director of Research & Industry Strategy at the Smart Electric Power Alliance. Prior to SEPA, Brenda worked as a consultant at ICF focusing on distributed energy resources, utility of the future and grid modernization efforts. Brenda holds an MSc in Sustainable Development from the University of St. Andrews, as well as bachelors degrees in both economics and environmental studies from Emory University.

John Caldwell

John Caldwell

Dr. John Caldwell is the former Director, Business Economics for Edison Electric Institute. John is an expert on development of long‐term forecast models for energy use and peak demand, alternative rate designs, such as negotiated rate, fixed price, and fixed bill products, and the implementation of financial hedging strategies and risk management systems to support these products. Earlier he worked at Illinois Power and NiSource. John has delivered papers at industry and academic conferences on price and income elasticity in the electricity sector, and the proper methodology for estimating the costs and benefits of grid technologies. John holds a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Champaign‐Urbana, an MBA from the University of Illinois at Springfield, an MS in mathematics from the University of Iowa, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Fritz Kahrl

Fritz Kahrl

Dr. Fredrich (Fritz) Kahrl is an independent researcher and consultant. His expertise covers wholesale energy market design and regulation, electricity resource planning, transmission tariff design, retail tariff design, distributed energy resources, cost-effectiveness assessment, energy system modeling, greenhouse gas accounting, cap-and-trade systems, and air quality regulation. Fritz has worked with policymakers, regulators, utilities, developers, non-profit organizations, and researchers in North America and Asia. He is a senior advisor to the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) and a scholar at the Berkeley-Tsinghua Joint Research Center. He holds Ph.D. and MS degrees in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BA in Philosophy from the College of William & Mary.

Debra Lew

Debra Lew

Dr. Debra Lew is an Associate Director at ESIG (Energy Systems Integration Group) focusing on the integration of wind, solar, storage and distributed energy resources. Previously, she was a Senior Technical Director at GE Energy Consulting, and earlier with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, where she initiated and led the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study which examined impacts of high penetrations of wind and solar in the Western Interconnection. In 2009-2010, she was seconded to the Hawaiian Electric Company to work on integrating high levels of wind and solar in Hawaii. She is the Chair of the International Institute of Electrical Engineers Power and Energy Society’s Wind and Solar Power Coordinating Committee and Chair of the Distributed Energy Working Group for the Energy Systems Integration Group. She has a BS in EE and Physics from MIT and a PhD from Stanford in Applied Physics.

Mark Paterson

Mark Paterson

Mark Paterson is Chief Strategy Officer and Managing Director of the Strategen Australia / Pacific practice based in Australia. Mark is an influential thought-leader in whole-system grid transformation and has played an integral role in Australia as it navigates to become one of the world’s most deeply decentralized electricity systems. Most recently, Mark served as General Manager of the Consumer Energy division at Horizon Power, a Western Australia utility. Earlier, he led the Electricity Grids & Renewable Energy Integration team at CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency. Mark is a member of the Clean Energy Council’s Distributed Energy Leadership Forum. He holds a Master of Enterprise from the University of Melbourne and undergrad qualifications in Business and Engineering.

Samir Succar

Samir Succar

Dr. Samir Succar leads ICF’s DER analytics group focused on long-term planning and energy market modeling. His work on distribution system planning has focused on the impacts of DERs on the distribution system and the quantification and valuation of the net locational benefits of those resources. His work also extends into the economics of increasing hosting capacity across a utility service territory to augment the amount DER that the system can accommodate. Samir’s work also includes distribution system operations and systems that can facilitate optimization and coordinated dispatch of DERs to enable their provision of grid support services and market functions across multiple timescales. Samir holds a BS in Physics from Oberlin College, a MSE, Electrical Engineering and Ph.D., Energy Systems Analysis from Princeton University.

Jeffrey Taft

Jeffrey Taft

Dr. Jeffrey Taft was the Chief Architect for Electric Grid Transformation. He is responsible for development and articulation of large-scale architecture for grid modernization, as well as support of many cross-cutting initiatives including the Future Power Grid, advanced computing, and the Control of Complex Systems. He began working in the grid modernization area in 2001 and has held smart grid chief architect roles with Cisco, Accenture, and IBM. Jeff formerly worked for Westinghouse and has participated in several key smart grid projects since he first began to develop sensor architectures and analytics for distribution grids, and then became involved in the larger issues of end-to-end grid integration and control. Jeff earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh with a dual specialization in digital signal processing and digital control systems in 1986. He is a member of the IEEE Power and Energy Society, is an emeritus member of the GridWise Architecture Council and is the holder of 27 patents in control systems, signal processing, and grid modernization.

David Kathan

David Kathan

David Kathan is the President of Kathan Energy Consulting. Prior to forming Kathan Energy Consulting, Dr. Kathan spent 20 years as a Senior Economist in the Office of Energy Policy and Innovation at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. While at FERC, David designed and led development of Order No. 719. which established demand response aggregators as wholesale market participants. He was the primary architect and leader of the game-changing recent Order No. 2222, which opened up the wholesale market to distributed energy resources, and led the development, drafting, and issuance of the order. David holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Grinnell College.

Executive Director & Staff

Paul De Martini
Executive Director

Paul De Martini

Paul De Martini is a leading expert on the business, policy and technology dimensions of a more distributed power system. His extensive writings and consulting work have influenced industry transformation efforts in Australia, Canada, and across the US. Paul was previously the Chief Technology & Strategy Officer, Energy Internet of Things at Cisco Systems and Vice President, Advanced Technology at Southern California Edison. Paul earlier led North American market development for two of the largest competitive integrated energy services firms. He was a visiting scholar at Caltech until 2020 and was the 2016 Cazier Practitioner-in-Residence at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, and earlier a Fellow at Wharton, University of Pennsylvania. He holds an MBA from the University of Southern California, BS, Applied Economics from the University of San Francisco, and Certificate in Technology Management from Caltech.

Andrew De Martini
Sr. Research Analyst

Andrew De Martini

Andrew De Martini is a senior research analyst and technical writer with extensive experience producing and editing client project deliverables and publication of white papers. He has supported development of US DOE’s Integrated Resilient Distribution Planning white paper, Modern Grid Report (DSPx), Caltech’s Grid 2020 report, California’s More Than Smart report, and several Edison Electric Institute papers as well as other national lab reports. Andrew studied Philosophy and History at Boston University, and has completed the Regulatory Basics course at the Center for Public Utilities, New Mexico State University.

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