Building a Resilient and Equitable Grid for the Future

The research of urban sociologist Dr. Jesse Hernandez is dedicated to understanding social problems that affect community cohesion, neighborhood development, and quality of life. His current research centers on using neighborhood-based energy and housing planning to implement climate change and sustainable community strategies in neighborhoods experiencing long-term divestment, health disparities, racial segregation, and poverty.

As MCE’s Manager of Strategic Initiatives, Alexandra works to coordinate multi-departmental community benefits efforts. This includes supporting green-collar workforce development initiatives, battery storage development for local resiliency, and advancing a commitment to equity through supplier diversity programs, among others. Previously MCE’s Community Power Organizer, Alexandra has been responsible for advocating for residents who have been traditionally underrepresented in the renewable energy narrative, including low-income and Spanish speakers, in particular. She received her MA from UC Berkeley in 2014, after completing her thesis on small-scale, decentralized, renewable energy systems for rural electrification in Nicaragua.

Lorenzo Kristov has worked in electricity policy for over 25 years, at the state and national levels in the U.S. and overseas. He is currently an independent policy expert working to transition the power system to renewable generation and distributed resources, and to enable communities and local governments to develop local power systems for resilience, decarbonization and energy justice. From 1999 to 2017 Lorenzo was a Principal in market design and infrastructure policy at the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), where he led projects to design the CAISO’s nodal wholesale market and redesign the transmission planning and generator interconnection processes. In recent years he has been applying grid architecture to facilitate power system decentralization and designing DSO models for the electric distribution utilities of the future.

Nora Hennings is the Senior Director of Business Development at Sunrun Inc., where she drives new strategic partnership development and growth initiatives, including grid services and virtual power plants, EV charging, whole home electrification, and market expansion opportunities. Prior to joining Sunrun, Nora spent four years with NextEra Energy’s Distributed Generation business.