LEFT: Dr. Amol Phadke is a Sci­en­tist and Group Leader at the Inter­na­tional Energy Stud­ies Group, Energy Analy­sis and Envi­ron­men­tal Impacts Depart­ment at the Lawrence Berke­ley National Lab­o­ra­tory. His research and tech­ni­cal sup­port activ­i­ties broadly focus on energy tech­nol­ogy, eco­nom­ics, mar­kets, and reg­u­la­tion. Cur­rently, his work is focused on energy in the Indian power sec­tor and appli­ance and equip­ment effi­ciency in sev­eral emerg­ing economies. Amol has pub­lished over 70 jour­nal arti­cles, research reports, and con­fer­ence papers. His work has been fea­tured in the Times of India, Eco­nomic Times, The Hindu, Nature Mag­a­zine, India and numer­ous other pub­li­ca­tions. Amol reg­u­larly advises the national gov­ern­ment, util­i­ties, and reg­u­la­tors in India on energy poli­cies and pro­grams. Prior to his employ­ment at Berke­ley Lab, Amol worked at the Prayas Energy Group and Tata Motors. Amol has a Bach­e­lor of Engi­neer­ing degree from Gov­ern­ment Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing, Pune, India, and a M.S. and Ph.D. from the Energy and Resources Group, from UC Berkeley.

RIGHT: Ran­jit Desh­mukh is an ITRI-​​Rosenfeld post­doc­toral fel­low in the Energy Tech­nolo­gies Area at the Lawrence Berke­ley National Lab­o­ra­tory. Ranjit’s research inter­ests lie at the inter­sec­tion of energy, cli­mate change, and eco­nom­ics, specif­i­cally in renew­able energy inte­gra­tion, energy access, demand response, and elec­tric­ity markets.

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the National Renew­able Energy Lab­o­ra­tory and the Power Sys­tems Oper­a­tion Cor­po­ra­tion of India, Ran­jit co-​​led a renew­able energy grid inte­gra­tion study to model India’s power sys­tem, and ana­lyze oper­a­tional and mar­ket strate­gies to inte­grate high shares of wind and solar gen­er­a­tion. This study is part of the ‘Greening-​​the-​​Grid’ pro­gram funded by the United States Agency for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment (USAID). Ran­jit works closely with sev­eral Gov­ern­ment of India agen­cies pro­vid­ing sup­port and train­ing to reg­u­la­tors and policymakers.

Ran­jit also co-​​led the devel­op­ment of the “Multi-​​criteria Analy­sis for Plan­ning Renew­able Energy” (MapRE) plat­form – an open-​​source data and tools plat­form, which enables the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and val­u­a­tion of spatially-​​explicit, cost-​​effective but envi­ron­men­tally and socially sus­tain­able wind and solar resources across large geo­graph­i­cal regions.

Ran­jit holds a PhD in Energy and Resources from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley, master’s degrees in Engi­neer­ing from Hum­boldt State Uni­ver­sity and Uni­ver­sity of Texas at Austin, and a bachelor’s degree from the Gov­ern­ment Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing Pune, India.

Ran­jit recently accepted and will soon start an Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor posi­tion in the Earth Research Insti­tute and the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Santa Bar­bara.  Go Ranjit!