Meeting/Event Information

Karen Herter, Ph.D

Karen Herter has worked in the energy industry for over 20 years in private, academic, and governmental institutions, conducting field, lab and market research, policy development, and statistical analysis. Her research covers a range of topics related to load flexibility, including customer-automated load shifting of HVAC and electric vehicle charging in response to time-varying prices.

During the California electricity crisis, Karen began working at the California Energy Commission under Commissioner Art Rosenfeld to support the implementation of digital meters, time-varying rates, and price-responsive automation. Building on this experience, she went on to design a portfolio of field studies, including the portion of the California Statewide Pricing Pilot showing a tripling of price-response benefits through HVAC automation. Karen also led the design of and evaluation plans for several price and technology studies at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, including the nationally renowned Smart Pricing Options pilot.

Today, Karen is back at the California Energy Commission in the final months of a two-year contract to lead the development of the Load Management Rulemaking. In this role, Karen has collaborated with state agencies, industry, non-profits, trade associations, research organizations, electric utilities, and the public to amend the CEC’s Load Management Standards with the goal of designing a statewide system for the publication of time-dependent rates to enable mass-market demand flexibility through customer-automated price response.

Karen's research covers a range of topics related to load flexibility, including customer-automated load shifting of HVAC in response to time-varying prices. Her presentation will provide results from several precooling studies with 15-minute compressor load data indicating significant potential for load shifting. On a statewide scale, such efforts can help decrease both carbon emissions and the cost of building operations.