Center for Renewables Integration (CRI) is excited to welcome a new Board President as of January 2024, Rao Konidena. Rao, who has been a valuable partner with CRI since 2018, brings a wealth of experience and a fresh perspective to the role. Kerinia Cusick, the former Board President, has transitioned to the position of Board Vice President, where she will continue to contribute her expertise and leadership to CRI.
Kerinia recruited Rao to lead CRI and was excited he accepted the challenge. “It has been a delight building CRI from a concept to an organization that is working at the leading edge of clean energy policy, and a privilege to partner with some of the leading companies and experts in the industry on specific projects,” said Kerinia.
Rao leverages his experience working for 15 years at Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) for clients. Before he left MISO, he was the Principal Advisor for Policy Studies, working on energy storage and distributed energy resources. At MISO, Rao worked in management and non-management roles focused on issues of resource adequacy, economic planning, business management and policy functions.
With CRI, Rao has collaborated with other specialists on several projects. This includes helping the world’s largest buyer of renewable energy investigate solutions to mitigate interconnection delays in PJM, working in every ISO on the development of new rules to allow distributed energy resources to participate in ISO/RTO markets, and providing expert testimony on the use Grid Enhancing Technologies (GETs) and Non-Transmission Alternatives (NTAs) in a MISO transmission siting case.
“It is an honor to be the CRI Board President,” said Rao. “There is more work to be done in advancing renewables and distributed energy resources on the transmission and distribution grids. Our state and federal policymakers are looking for specific solutions, moving beyond general goals, and CRI has done excellent foundational work in the past 7 years. I am excited to build on this foundation and thank Kerinia and the rest of the CRI Board for this opportunity to lead CRI’s work in the years ahead.”
Center for Renewables Integration experts work at the state, ISO/RTO, and federal levels to develop and implement policies that enable the transition to clean energy cost effectively and without impacting reliability.