Speaker: Susan Tierney, Managing Principal, Analysis Group. Abstract: So much work is underway to advance energy technologies to make them more efficient, have a lower carbon footprint, more accessible to communities, and so forth. And yet, it is so hard to put new energy technologies into place in domestic (and many international) markets. Why is that? Tierney discusses the array of factors arising out of national energy policy, regulatory approaches and practices, energy and other politics, investment settings, and so forth, that create tenacious barriers to the introduction of advanced energy technologies into existing systems. She also will address what is happening to overcome those obstacles and why more is needed.
About the speaker: Sue Tierney, a Managing Principal at Analysis Group in Boston, is an expert on energy economics, regulation and policy. She consults on market analysis, transmission policy, energy facility siting, utility ratemaking, energy efficiency, renewables, and climate and energy policy. Her previous positions included Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Energy, Massachusetts Secretary of Environmental Affairs, Commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities Chairman of the Board of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, and executive director of the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Council. She co-chaired the DOE Agency Review Team for the Obama Presidential Transition Team. Currently, she co-chairs the National Commission on Energy Policy, chairs the board of the Energy Foundation, chairs the Advisory Council of the National Renewable Energy Lab; and is a director of World Resources Institute, Clean Air Task Force, Clean Air - Cool Planet, Evergreen Solar, and Ze-gen. She taught at the University of California at Irvine, and earned her Ph.D. from Cornell University.