Dr. Richard Tabors
President
Email: rtabors@tcr-us.com
Richard Tabors is an economist and scientist with 40 years of domestic and international experience in energy planning and pricing, international development, and water and wastewater systems planning. Dr. Tabors provides expert consulting and testimony on the design, structuring, and regulation of power markets. His strength in these roles is based upon his ability to develop and manage effective client- and problem-focused teams that bring intellectual originality and rigor to the challenges of energy markets. Dr. Tabors is co-director of the MIT Energy Initiative’s Utility of the Future project in addition to being President of TCR.
Dr. Tabors has provided expert assistance and testimony in numerous energy sector regulatory and arbitration cases at the federal, state, and provincial levels throughout the United States and Canada. He has provided technical assistance on electricity markets and market development to policy makers, utilities, merchant power developers, and transmission companies in North America, Europe, Latin America, Australia, and the Middle East.
Dr. Tabors was a member of the MIT team that developed the theory of spot pricing upon which real-time pricing and locational marginal pricing of electricity and transmission services are based (Spot Pricing of Electricity, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988). Dr. Tabors subsequently led teams addressing the restructuring of power markets in the United Kingdom, throughout the United States, and in Canada. Dr. Tabors has held a variety of research and teaching positions at MIT including assistant director of the Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems, associate director of the Technology and Policy master’s program. Dr. Tabors is also a visiting professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland.
Prior to founding TCR in 2014, Dr. Tabors was vice president and Energy Practice leader at Charles River Associates from 2004 to 2012. He was previously founder and president of Tabors Caramanis & Associates from 1988 until its sale to Charles River Associates in 2004.
EDUCATION:
DSc (Hons), Electrical Engineering, University of Strathclyde, Scotland
PhD, Geography and Economics, Maxwell School, Syracuse University
MS, Geography and Economics, Maxwell School, Syracuse University
BA, Biology, Dartmouth College
Dr. Michael Caramanis
Principal
Email: mcaraman@bu.edu
Michael Caramanis is a professor of systems and mechanical engineering at Boston University with expertise in mathematical economics, optimization, and stochastic dynamic decision making. He has 40 years’ experience in electricity generation expansion, supply chain optimization, and spatiotemporal marginal costing of electricity in transmission and distribution networks. Dr. Caramanis has directed numerous research projects on these issues sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, National Science Foundation, and the electric industry. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 refereed publications.
The focus of Dr. Caramanis’ current research and consulting is marginal costing and dynamic pricing in smart power grids, grid topology control to mitigate congestion, and extending power markets into distribution systems in order to enable increased market participation by distribution connected loads, generation and storage resources.
Dr. Caramanis served as chair of the Greek Regulatory Authority for Energy from 2005 through 2009, and chaired the Investment Group of the International Energy Charter from 2004 to 2008. Dr. Caramanis was a member of the MIT team that developed the theory of spot pricing upon which real-time pricing and locational marginal pricing of electricity and transmissions services are based (Spot Pricing of Electricity, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988). Dr. Caramanis subsequently participated in pioneering the implementations of restructured wholesale electricity markets in the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States, and Spain.
EDUCATION:
PhD, Engineering, Harvard University
MS, Engineering, Harvard University
BS, Chemical Engineering, Stanford University
Dr. Alex Rudkevich
Principal
Email: arudkevich@tcr-us.com
Dr. Rudkevich is a mathematician and economist with expertise in modeling power markets, design of power markets, and optimization of power systems and natural gas supply. He has over 30 years’ experience providing consulting, research and expert testimony on the design and operation of power systems. His consulting includes valuation of generation and transmission assets; price forecasting and development of forward curves; market design; evaluation of alternative market designs for electric energy, capacity, ancillary services, assessments of financial transmission rights and marginal losses; and analyses of market power and mitigation measures.
Dr. Rudkevich is also president of Newton Energy Group (NEG), a research affiliate of TCR. At NEG he developed ENELYTIX™*, a cloud based environment for modeling power markets. TCR has used Enelytix to prepare valuations of existing and proposed generation and transmission assets and to analyze power market designs throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Currently Dr. Rudkevich is leading a multi-disciplinary team on a major ARPA-E funded project to develop market designs and algorithms for co-optimization of wholesale natural gas and electric markets. Other representative projects include development of an advanced method of topology control for the electric grid, technical direction of economic analysis for the Eastern Interconnection Planning Collaborative, cost-benefit analysis of the implementation of a nodal market design for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and analysis of congestion for the Department of Energy’s first National Electric Transmission Congestion Study.
Prior to co-founding NEG and TCR, Dr. Rudkevich was a vice president at Charles River Associates in its Energy & Environment practice. Previously he has served in senior consulting positions with Tabors Caramanis & Associates, Tellus Institute, Cambridge Energy Research Associates, and the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
EDUCATION:
PhD, Energy Economics and Technology, Russian Academy of Sciences
ABD, System Analysis and Operations Research, Russian Academy of Sciences
MS, Applied Mathematics, Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas
* In 2016, NEG rebranded pCloudAnalytics (pCA) as Enelytix.
Dr. John Goldis
Senior Consultant
Email: jgold@negll.com
Dr. John Goldis. John is a computer science expert and economist with 10 years’ experience as a consultant on design and analysis of power markets in the United States, Canada and Mexico. At TCR Dr. Goldis provides consulting services on generation and transmission valuation, wind integration studies, analysis of market power, resource adequacy, and many others.
Dr. Goldis is also co‐founder and chief technology officer of Newton Energy Group (“NEG”). At NEG, he is responsible for the implementation and application of high performance computing to optimizing software processes related to economic market modeling. He has published articles in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Transactions on Power Systems and has presented papers at numerous national and international conferences organized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. Prior to co‐founding NEG, Dr. Goldis was a senior associate at Charles River Associates in its Energy & Environment practice. Previously he held various software development positions focusing on data mining, warehousing and application development and has been Microsoft Certified in C# .NET.
EDUCATION:
PhD, Systems Engineering, Boston University
MA, Economics, Boston University
BS, Computer Science, Harvey Mudd College
Ninad Kumthekar
Director
Email: nkumthekar@tcr-us.com
Ninad Kumthekar is a mechanical engineer and analyst with over 10 years’ experience in the energy industry. He specializes in the modeling and analysis of power systems and has a firm understanding of the technical and economic fundamentals of power markets, renewable markets, power generation, and transmission.
At TCR, Ninad has played a leading role in TCRs consulting engagements, serving as the project manager and lead analyst in various asset valuation and market operation projects including the evaluation of clean energy and offshore wind proposals TCR has prepared for Rhode Island and Massachusetts. He was involved in the development of modeling assumptions, evaluation metrics, bid reviews, reports and presentations, and providing regulatory support. He has also served as an analyst on TCR’s other consulting and litigation projects, including market operation and asset valuation projects in New York, as well as developing projections and analyzing market prices and marginal emission rates (MER) across multiple power markets (ISOs and balancing areas) across North America. These engagements also involved the development of input assumptions and modeling methods for various modeling scenarios and sensitivities.
Prior to TCR, he worked as a project engineer with the UK based engineering consulting firm, Mott MacDonald, with their power generation team in Abu Dhabi. In that role he was a part of project teams delivering technical advisory, engineering consultancy and design services to developers, regulatory bodies, lenders and electric utilities in the Middle East.
Mr. Kumthekar is proficient at developing simulation models and analyzing results from capacity expansion and production cost models using ENELYTIX. In his prior work, he has modeled complex thermal cogeneration systems, undertaken design reviews, feasibility studies and assisted in the development and evaluation of technical bids. He is experienced in developing spreadsheet-based calculation models for load forecasting, fuel demand modeling, system optimization, and project lifecycle cost analysis. He is conversant in VBA and python and uses them to undertake more complex data manipulation and statistical analysis tasks.
Ninad is a food enthusiast, hobby crafter and LEGO collector, and loves spending his free time playing and producing music.
EDUCATION:
Master of Engineering Management, Dartmouth College
BTech, Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, India
Alexander Derenchuk
Senior Analyst
Email:aderenchuk@tcr-us.com
Alex is a senior analyst at TCR with three years of experience in power market design, operations, and simulation. He has previously worked on long-term market forecasts for several power markets across North America, offshore wind evaluation for Massachusetts utility companies, evaluation of voluntary corporate clean energy procurement strategies, and probabilistic wind generation forecasting. He also has experience developed automated tools in Python and SQL for market model input data preparation and result analysis.
In his free time, Alex likes to spend time skiing, rock climbing, hiking, and biking.
EDUCATION
BE, Engineering, Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth
BA, Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College
Tiantong Qi
Senior Analyst
Email:tqi@tcr-us.com
Tiantong is an engineer with 2 years of experience simulating and analyzing electric power markets.
EDUCATION
Master of Engineering Management, Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth
BA, Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College
Kieran Ahern
Analyst
Email:kahern@tcr-us.com
Kieran is a mechanical engineer and analyst with one year of experience in modeling and power market simulation in ENELYTIX. He supports TCR's modeling projects development on energy and capacity market research, input preparation, benchmarking of models, and capacity expansion and energy & ancillary services model setup. He has helped with research to buildout datasets while preparing and maintaining automation tools for inputs and results dataflows. He is driven by his interest in energy markets as a key to the green transition and enjoys working with the team to support the renewable energy projects and analyses.
Kieran also enjoys being active, biking, running, canoeing, gardening, and amateur woodworking.
EDUCATION
BE, Engineering, Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth
BA, Engineering Sciences, Dartmouth College
Mr. Paul Centolella
Consultant to TCR
Paul Centolella, president of Paul Centolella & Associates, is a lawyer and former Ohio public utility regulator. Paul has more than 35 years of experience in utility regulation; energy and environmental economics, market design and analysis; energy technology and standards development; and public utility and environmental law. His work has contributed to the development of environmental and electric power markets including the SO 2 allowance cap and trade system and regional power markets, the modernization of power systems, and the evolution of utility business and regulatory models. A former Commissioner on the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, he has been recognized for his contributions to the development of utility regulatory policy.
Mr. Centolella advises clients and provides expert testimony on utility regulation, utility business and regulatory models, power markets, efficient pricing, energy sector innovation, and the application of smart and clean energy technology. He has extensive knowledge about the design of energy and environmental markets and the integration into power systems of information and communications technology including the role of standards and security.
Mr. Centolella has served on a range of expert committees and task forces, including the Department of Energy’s Electricity Advisory Committee, the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Determinants of Market Adoption of Advanced Energy Efficiency and Clean Energy Technologies, MIT Utility of the Future Advisory Committee, the Electric Power Research Institute’s Advisory Council, the board of directors for the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel and the U.S. Delegation to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Senior Officials Meeting.
Prior to founding Paul Centolella & Associates, Mr. Centolella was a vice president at the Analysis Group, a commissioner with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and a senior economist at Science Applications International Corporation.
EDUCATION:
JD, University of Michigan
BS, Economics, Oberlin College
Dr. Ira Shavel
Consultant to TCR
Dr. Shavel is an energy economist with over 35 years of experience in the energy industry, specializing in the economics and operations of electric power systems, generation and transmission investment, and environmental compliance strategy. He has performed work for a wide range of clients, including the IESO, an Ontario distribution company, generation and transmission companies throughout North America, market operators, natural gas pipeline companies, energy marketers, industry research groups, as well as federal agencies.
Dr. Shavel has broad experience in the development and use of power system models. He has directed significant assignments for major electric utilities, independent transmission companies, independent power producers, and private equity on matters such as power plant valuation and appraisals, coal plant retirements, fuel and wholesale price forecasting, and the benefits of new transmission lines. Dr. Shavel has testified before the Ontario Energy Board, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), state regulatory agencies, US Federal Courts, and the Michigan Tax Tribunal.
Dr. Shavel was Principal at the Brattle Group until he retired from Brattle in September 2018. Prior to Brattle he was a Vice President at Charles River Associates (CRA), a Vice President at Putnam Hayes and Bartlett, and a Vice President at ICF.
EDUCATION:
PhD, Mathematics, State University of New York
SM, Operations Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MS, Mathematics, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
Dr. Geoffrey Parker
Consultant to TCR
Geoffrey Parker (Geoff) is a professor of engineering at the Thayer School of Dartmouth College where he also serves as director of the Master of Engineering Management Program. Prior to joining Dartmouth, he was a professor of management science at the A. B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University and served as Director of the Tulane Energy Institute. Dr. Parker is also a fellow at the MIT Initiative for the Digital Economy and a member of the GE Africa Learning Advisory Board.
Dr. Parker’s current research explores the economics and strategy of platform markets and two-sided markets, distributed innovation and systems to integrate renewable energy. He is a frequent speaker at academic conferences and industry events. Dr. Parker has worked with firms such as AT&T, Cellular South, GE, Haier, IBM, International Postal Corporation, Microsoft, Mindtree, SAP, Thomson Reuters, and the United States Postal Service.
Parker has made significant contributions to the field of network economics and strategy as co-developer of the theory of “two-sided” markets. His research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and multiple corporations. He serves or has served as associate editor at multiple journals and as a National Science Foundation panelist. Before attending MIT, he held positions in engineering and finance at GE Semiconductor in North Carolina and at GE Healthcare in Wisconsin. Parker is co-author of the book “Platform Revolution” published by WW Norton & Co. in 2016.
EDUCATION:
PhD, Management Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MS, Electrical Engineering (Technology and Policy), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
BS, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Princeton University
Scott Englander
Consultant to TCR
Scott Englander. An engineer with 30 years’ experience in the electric industry, Mr. Englander advises clients on electricity market economics, design, and operation, renewables, transmission, and generation. As president of Longwood Energy Group, Mr. Englander leads projects to quantify the economic benefits and value of clean and renewable energy investments, develop clean energy technology, procure energy supply, and provide strategic advisory services. Scott developed projections of REC prices for the AESC 2015 study.
Prior to forming Longwood Energy Group in 2012, he served as a Director at Charles River Associates for eight years, where he focused on clean and renewable energy, electricity market economics and operations, and energy regulatory and litigation support. Previously, as vice president of Tabors Caramanis & Associates, Mr. Englander focused extensively on transmission pricing, contracts, and power market design, while evaluating and shaping the restructuring of the electricity industry. He has testified as expert witness in a number of major cases involving wholesale electricity and transmission contracts in the United States and internationally, taught courses on electricity markets for numerous market participants and regulators, and led research and development efforts on price-responsive commercial and industrial control technologies.
EDUCATION:
MSE, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University
BA, Energy Studies/Agriculture, The Evergreen State College
J Richard (Rick) Hornby
Consultant to TCR
Rick Hornby is an industrial engineer and energy policy analyst with 40 years’ experience in energy economics, policy, and ratemaking issues. Mr. Hornby provides consulting services, litigation support, and expert testimony on electric industry planning, market structure, and ratemaking issues. He is focusing on issues associated with the transition to cleaner sources in wholesale energy markets and to the utility of the future at the distribution level. Representative projects include analysis of market design and pricing required to implement a new distribution level market for electric products from distributed energy resources and traditional resources; development of long-term projections of avoided electricity and natural gas costs in New England; and assessment of the impact of offshore wind on wholesale energy prices on Long Island.
Mr. Hornby’s clients have included utility regulators, efficiency program administrators, consumer advocates, environmental groups, state energy and environmental policy makers, power and transmission project developers, energy marketers, gas producers, and utilities throughout the United States and in Canada. He has provided expert testimony and litigation support on numerous electricity and natural gas issues in over 125 regulatory proceedings and contract arbitration cases in more than 30 states and provinces. He has testified on the value of distributed energy resources; utility proposals for smart grid and smart meter investments; proposals for dynamic pricing and other time varying rates; proposed acquisitions of generating assets; ratemaking proposals to better align utility financial incentives with aggressive pursuit of energy efficiency, including the Duke Energy “save-a-watt” proposal; unbundling electricity and natural gas retail services and rates; and procurement of natural gas supplies and pipeline capacity.
Prior to joining TCR, Mr. Hornby was a senior consultant at Synapse Energy Economics and at Tabors Caramanis & Associates. Previously he was director of the energy practice at Tellus Institute, assistant deputy minister of energy for the province of Nova Scotia, and a project engineer responsible for energy management programs in industry.
EDUCATION:
MS, Technology and Policy (Energy), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
BE, Industrial Engineering, Dalhousie University
Jeffrey D. (Dan) Watkiss, Esq.
Consultant to TCR
Mr. Watkiss is a trial and transactional attorney. He has over 30 years of domestic and international experience, primarily in economic regulation, antitrust and natural resources. As a senior litigation attorney with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (1982-86) and partner in three private law firms (1986-2017), Mr. Watkiss has led the litigation of more than 50 civil and administrative trials and argued multiple appeals. He devised advocacy and litigation strategies for expanding access to and participation in power markets and has effectively implemented these strategies in many contested civil and administrative cases and agency rulemakings. In his many trials, Mr. Watkiss has become expert at translating complex technical and scientific concepts and processes into positions and arguments accessible to non-experts, including legislators, judges, regulators, and the popular press.
Mr. Watkiss has played a central role in much of the evolution and innovation that has occurred in U.S. energy markets since 1980. Beginning with the most recent, these include:
- Advocating for the rights of merchant transmission investors and developers to participate in the planning, design and construction of regional electric transmission network upgrade—competitive opportunities that became available through FERC initiatives in Orders No. 890 (2007) and 1000 (2011).
- Advocating for demand response as a supply alternative to generation on behalf of developers of load aggregation procedures and applications. Mr. Watkiss has published articles supporting the eligibility of demand response resources to participate on an equal footing with generation in regional (RTO and ISO) power markets.
- Advocating to the U.S. Congress in support of increased investment in the transmission grid and economic dispatch of all supply and demand resources, for which provisions were enacted in Title XII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
- Forming a coalition of independent power producers, municipal utilities, and rural electric cooperatives to petition the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a rulemaking mandating non-discriminatory open-access to the transmission grid, which FERC did in 1996 in its Orders No. 888 and No. 889 based largely the coalition’s petition and rulemaking comments,
- Forming coalition of qualifying small renewable (geothermal, run-of- river hydro, wind, and solar) power producers, municipal utilities, and rural electric cooperatives that successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress to enact provisions of Title VII of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 amending the Public Utility Holding Companies Act and the Federal Power Act to authorize independent power production and open-access to the electric grid. Following enactment, Mr. Watkiss co-authored a widely cited article explaining the importance of Title VII in the Yale Journal on Regulation.
- Advocating for coalition of economists and electric utilities in favor of the highly successful sulfur-dioxide trading program that Congress adopted in Title IV of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.
Mr. Watkiss is a member of the District of Columbia and New York bars and the Energy Bar Association. He is also a frequent contributor to energy and natural resources trade publications.
EDUCATION:
A.B. Stanford University (1975)
J.D. S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah (1980)
1ENELYTIX is a cloud-based modeling environment for simulating the operation of wholesale electric markets. TCR licenses ENELYTIX from Newton Energy Group, the TCR affiliate who developed and supports it.
2GECO ENELYTIX is a cloud-based modeling environment for simulating and co-optimizing the multi-day and intra-day operation of electric and natural gas networks. TCR licenses GECO ENELYTIX from Newton Energy Group, the TCR affiliate who developed and supports it.