Convo: Ralph Cavanagh on Removing Barriers to Cost-Effective Energy Efficiency
In this episode of Flanigan’s Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Ralph Cavanagh, senior attorney and co-director of Natural Resources Defense Council’s energy program.
Ralph joined the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1979 and has had an illustrious career focusing on removing barriers to cost-effective energy efficiency, and on the role that electric and natural gas utilities can play in leading a clean energy transition.
Ralph and Ted discuss his studies at Yale College and the Yale Law School, and becoming a member of the US Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board (SEAB) from 1993 – 2003. They also dig into performance-based rate paying, revenue decoupling, NRDC’s stance on net-energy metering in California, and current decarbonization works.
Ralph has been a visiting professor at the Stanford and UC Berkeley Law Schools and a lecturer on law at Harvard, and he is a long-time faculty member at the University of Idaho’s Energy Executive Course. He chairs the advisory board of the Energy and Efficiency Institute at the University of California at Davis, and he serves on the boards of the Bipartisan Policy Center and BPC Action. He has received the Heinz Award for Public Policy, the BPA Administrator’s Award for Exceptional Public Service, the Alliance to Save Energy’s Charles H. Percy Award for Public Service, and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ Mary Kilmarx Award.
