Bio
Dr. Archana Ghodeswar completed her Ph.D. in Economics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The title of her Ph.D. thesis is “Essays on Environmental, Fiscal, and Demand-Side Policies in Electricity Markets.” Archana is an energy economist with expertise in energy and environmental policies. Archana received her master’s in electrical power systems from India in 2011. Before joining the Ph.D. program in the US, Archana worked in a large Indian electric utility for several years, where she served as an engineer in the transmission and distribution of power. In addition to her expertise in demand-side management and energy efficiency improvements, she has considerable power plant knowledge.
Archana is a Certified Energy Manager (CEM) who can who has the capability to optimize the energy performance of a facility, building, or industrial plant. She helps to develop and implement organizations' energy management strategies.
"India Power Award 2014" for 'Best Woman's Contribution to the power sector' is one of Archana's major achievements. In India, she served as an executive engineer for a district with more than 100,000 electricity consumers. She played an active role in rural electrification, designing and implementing the ring-main system for the district, converting the distribution system from an overhead line to underground cable in the town, and resolving issues related to prosumers.
Currently, Archana is engaged in creating Excel-based dashboards as tools for the DOE to analyze the nonenergy benefits, cost-effectiveness, and retroactive evaluation of weatherization assistance program (WAP). She has also created Excel-based return on investment (ROI) tool for residential solar power in a clean energy to community (C2C) program. Archana is a team member and ORNL lead with other multi labs performing analyses on distributional impacts of DECARB. She has done systematic review for monetizing the resiliency value for microgrids/CHP and the time value of carbon emission in the DOE's CHP Deployment Program. She has also contributed to the OECD project on energy and environmental justice in the clean energy transition, drafting a chapter in the report to DOE.
Archana brings a unique skill set to her work, with a background in electrical engineering, statistics, and economics. Her research interests include energy and environmental economics, power systems, sustainable energy systems, environmental justice, and public policy.