FERC's Demand Response Assessment Study

Ben Foster is an Energy Industry Analyst in the Office of Energy Policy and Innovation at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Mr. Foster joined the Commission in 2013, and works primarily on policy analysis and market design related to energy storage, demand response, and transmission infrastructure development. Mr. Foster is the project lead for the Commission staff's annual Demand Response and Advanced Metering Report. In addition, he recently spent a year on detail at Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, exchanging views on electricity market design and industry restructuring with the Commission's Japanese counterparts. Previously, Mr. Foster was a Senior Analyst at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, where he led analyses of retail energy efficiency policies and programs, including the annual State Energy Efficiency Scorecard report. He has a B.A. from the University of Virginia and an M.A. from Middlebury in energy and environmental policy.

Michael Lee is an Energy Industry Analyst in the Office of Energy Policy and Innovation at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Mr. Lee joined the Commission in 2010, and works on issues that include distributed energy resources, demand response, and wholesale market design. Mr. Lee has been the project lead for Commission staff's annual Demand Response and Advanced Metering Report required by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Mr. Lee also serves as a Commission's liaison to the North American Energy Standards Board with a focus on wholesale electric standards development. Prior to joining FERC, Mr. Lee was the Director of Integrated Resource Planning at the Maryland Public Service Commission, where he proposed and collaborated on the design and implementation demand response policies, certified distributed energy resources, and facilitated curtailment service provider efforts in the state. Mr. Lee also oversaw the state's renewable portfolio standard. Earlier, he served as a Senior Policy Analyst in the Department of Legislative Service, Maryland General Assembly, where he provided economic and policy guidance. Mr. Lee has also provided energy, economic and regulatory consulting services to DOE Headquarters, DLA Energy (Defense Energy Support Center), and state regulatory agencies.

Since 2005, Michael has worked at Berkshire Hathaway NV Energy — the largest investor owned utility in the State of Nevada. He currently manages a business unit focused on smart grid enabled customer solutions for energy and peak demand management. Michael's efforts have included the design and implementation of: one of the largest two-way communicating programmable thermostat programs in the country; a large scale Home Area Network program that integrates EE and DR; a commercial building DR program that utilizes automated communications and optimization software technology to obtain significant energy and peak demand savings; and, an advanced DR Management System that allows demand side resources to actively participate in utility energy resource portfolio optimization and risk management processes.