As a Director at Strategen, Jennifer leads projects relating to grid modernization, advanced rate design, policy innovation, and distributed energy resources (DERs). She supports private- and public-sector clients across numerous domains, leveraging her prior experience as a state Commissioner to deliver valuable insights to clients. In her prior role as Commissioner at the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission, Jennifer often led docket process design, workshop organization with diverse stakeholders, and ultimate execution of hundreds of docketed proceedings. She has over 18 years of energy industry experience, including ten years at municipal utilities, four years of national lab experience, over four years as Commissioner, and nearly a year of consulting experience.
Prior to joining the Commission, Jennifer was a Research Specialist at the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute where she led Virtual Power Plant with the local electric utility and industry contractors. She also led the Pathways to an Open Grid project which determined the marginal and locational costs for DERs on the Oahu grid. Furthermore, she examined new opportunities for demand response and grid services on Hawaii’s islands.
Jennifer served as a Sr. Scientific Engineering Associate at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she conducted research on demand response and time-based pricing. She worked on the California Demand Response Potential Study commissioned by the California Public Utilities Commission. Before joining LBL, Jennie worked at Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) as a Principal Market Analyst, Project Manager, and Strategic Planner. She has spent over ten years conducting analysis on customer usage, energy efficiency, and demand response, forecasting, and conducting simulations on load data for the utility.
Jennie spent three years as the Project Manager on SMUD’s SmartSacramento team, working on the Department of Energy grant-funded Consumer Behavior Study, known as “SMUD’s SmartPricing Options” pilot. Jennie was responsible for the pilot’s marketing, implementation, retention, data collection, and reporting. Before her time at SMUD, Jennie worked at the City of Roseville, Roseville Electric, as the utility’s principal load and revenue forecaster, load researcher, and business analyst.
She holds a Master of Science in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and Economics from Southern Oregon University.