Peter Fox-Penner
Founding Director, Institute for Sustainable Energy
- Education
- BS, Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois
MS, Mechanical Engineering (Energy Policy), University of Illinois
PhD, Economics, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago - pfoxp@bu.edu
Dr. Fox-Penner is a Senior Fellow and Founding Director (2016 – 2021) of the Boston University Institute for Sustainable Energy. He was formerly a Professor of Practice at the Questrom School of Business, where he co-directed and is now a Senior Fellow of the Impact Measurement and Allocation Program (IMAP) of research in sustainable finance.
In addition, he is a Partner and Chief Impact Officer of Energy Impact Partners, one of the largest dedicated clean energy private equity fund groups in the world and an academic advisor to The Brattle Group. He is on the global leadership council of the World Resources Institute and on the advisory boards of Mobility Impact Partners, and the National Regulatory Research Institute’s Training Initiative. He is also affiliated with the Energy Futures Initiative.
He formerly served as a senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Prior to BU, he served for over two decades as principal and chairman of The Brattle Group, an economic consulting firm.
Dr. Fox-Penner is a frequent speaker on energy topics and the author of numerous published articles and books, including the highly acclaimed Smart Power: Climate Change, the Smart Grid, and the Future of Electric Utilities (Island Press, 2010) and its sequel Power After Carbon: Building a Clean, Resilient Grid (Harvard University Press, 2020). His research has been widely cited, including in one Supreme Court decision.
His research and writing interests are in the areas of electric power strategy, regulation, and governance; energy and climate policy; sustainable finance; and the relationships between public and private economic activity.