John Woody is a Senior Consultant at Energy and Environmental Economics (E3), a consulting firm specializing in electricity markets. Before joining E3, John was a Manager at Renewable Ventures (RV) where he worked on the development and financing of over $100 million of solar photovoltaic projects. Previously, John was the Business Solutions Fellow at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. There he worked with the Center's Business Environmental Leadership Council (BELC)--the largest U.S.-based business association devoted to advancing solutions on climate change--on business, technological, and policy solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He has also worked at the Natural Resource Defense Council's Climate Center in Washington, DC and on the Hydrogen Infrastructure Project for the California Energy Commission while at TIAX, LLC, a technology consulting firm. John is the author of Climate Change: What's Your Business Strategy? (HBS Press, May 2008, with Andrew Hoffman) and holds a BS in Earth Systems (with a focus on Energy Science and Technology) and a MS in Energy Engineering, both from Stanford University.

Fellowship

While at NRDC, John accomplished two main research tasks. One task was to look into how various economic models handle renewable energy and technology improvement rates, an important but often nontransparent element of models. The work required considerable proficiency with the models' documentation and numerous interviews with agency and academic staff. John's findings will allow NRDC to better understand modeling results from others, and to better define its own modeling work.

The second task was to look at the implementation of voluntary climate agreements, to understand how specific are the underlying commitments, and whether there has been any review or oversight of the commitments. The information has been used to interest congressional staff in conducting future oversight activities.

“John came in with relevant background, good work skills, and was a quick learner. As a result he was able to take on tasks relatively independently, and complete them within the timeframe of the Fellowship. The ability to select from a range of candidates is an excellent feature of the program.”

—Jeff Fiedler and Antonia Herzog

“I really enjoyed getting to work at such a well-respected environmental institutional with some of the best minds in the field. I learned so much about the intersection and science and policy, and it was an invaluable experience.”

—John Woody