Follow M.J. Beck Consulting (MJB) Director, Jonathan McClelland on Twitter @mcclelland_nyc. Plus receive updates on states’ renewable energy policies by following @TheRPSEdge which compliments MJB’s online database of Renewable Portfolio Standards

This week, Jonathan McClelland, Director in the M.J. Beck Consulting (MJB) New York office participated at the CERES Investor Summit on Climate Risk and Energy Solutions at the United Nations headquarters in midtown Manhattan. The program included excellent array of panels and speakers including Goldman Sachs Analyst, Abby Joseph Cohen and UN Foundation President, Tim Wirth.

The Committee of Chief Risk Officers (CCRO), an independent non-profit corporation of member companies dedicated to the advancement of a broad range of best practices in the field of risk management, regularly develops and issues White Papers on a variety of topical areas of interest relevant to the energy industry, facilitated by consulting expertise.

The CCRO, whose members include companies of all types and sizes engaged in the energy industry, engaged MJB to facilitate the development of a White Paper on Market Clearing in the Energy Industry. The purpose of this paper was to advance the use of financial as well as physical clearing in the energy industry by: contributing to a common understanding and definition of clearing; identifying its benefits to the market; identifying hurdles and challenges still present; and presenting recommendations that promote its appropriate application and development. The paper also provided a summary description of each of the major vendors offering clearing solutions and a side-by-side comparison of them versus desired clearing attributes. The paper has been one of the more widely quoted White Papers that the CCRO has issued.

The team at M.J. Beck Consulting (MJB) would like to wish our clients, partners and members of the energy community the very best for this holiday season and the coming year.

It has been our privilege to deliver on some high profile and critical client projects during the course of 2011. We look forward to serving existing and new electricity industry clients with strategic, economics and operations analysis in 2012.

Bill Klun, Senior Advisor to M.J. Beck Consulting (MJB), will speak at the Johns Hopkins Biotech Network on November 16th.  Klun’s speech, “A Practical Guide to Technology Commercialization – How to Build A Business in Biofuel Innovation”, will address the diverse field of renewable fuel production, renewable energy policy, and technology commercialization.

The seminar, to be held at the Johns Hopkins campus in Baltimore, MD will bring together experts in the field to discuss current issues in bringing a renewable technology to market, and the financial opportunities for start-ups to move into the renewable energy sector.

New York City

October 27th, 2011: Mike Beck, Managing Director of M.J. Beck Consulting, LLC gave the keynote speech and took part in a panel discussion in front of an audience of Con Edison GOLD program participants and managers. Beck outlined the energy and climate goals of New York City’s Long Term Sustainability plan (PlaNYC) and discussed the opportunities and challenges associated with meeting them.

Following the presentation, Beck joined Con Edison’s Baeth Fanek, Section Manager of 3G System of the Future, Joseph McGowan, Section Manager of Gas Customer Solutions, and Colin Smart, Section Manager of Demand Response programs, to discuss how Con Edison is working with the City to implement PlaNYC initiatives at the customer and operations levels.

New York, NY
M.J. Beck Consulting LLC (MJB) is pleased to announce that Gabor Takacs has joined the MJB team as an energy analyst. Gabor will be based in our New York office in a full-time analyst role.  He is completing a 6-month research project for his PhD thesis at Szent Istvan University of Godollo, which will use mean-variance portfolio analysis to assess renewables’ effect on long-term electricity prices.  He has extended project-development and project-management experiences on large scale biogas and biomass projects, and environmental policy advocacy expertise on carbon market and wind-power regulation. Gabor earned his bachelors degree in biology, geography from ELTE University, and economics from Corvinus University and his masters degree in economics, environmental policy and regulation from Corvinus University and the London School of Economics. 

William (Bill) Klun, a senior advisor with M.J. Beck Consulting LLC (MJB) has been nominated and approved to join the Cleantech Advisory Committee (“CTAC”) at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. In this role, Klun will evaluate proposed clean-tech and energy technology investments made through the Authority’s family of Edison Innovation venture funds. On hearing of the appointment, Klun commented “I am quite excited by this as the interplay between public policy and private enterprise in economic development is one of my great interests.” This is a part time position; Klun will continue his role with MJB advising clients on energy and financial market issues. Klun joined the MJB team as an advisor in 2006, having previously held positions at RNK Capital, DZ Bank, and PA Consulting. He has over 15 years experience identifying, evaluating and structuring energy-related investment opportunities and financings.

Boston, MA

Barbara Kates-Garnick, a member of the M.J. Beck Consulting, LLC (MJB) team has been appointed as Undersecretary of Energy, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. During her time at MJB, Barbara (Bobbi) was an key member of the team working on important projects such as the update to New York City’s long term sustainability plan, PlaNYC 2030.

Bobbi is extremely well qualified to take up this position given her impressive background working in industry (notably for National Grid), in government (including a period as Massachusetts DPU Commissioner) and in academia (as an adjunct professor at NYU-Poly). The team wishes Bobbi the best of luck in this new role.