World-leading thought and practice experts
Energy Catalyst’s reputation is based on a successful history of advancing highly collaborative and constructive energy transformation initiatives. This capability is underpinned by an extensive network of energy system leaders across Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, and by the world-leading thought and practice experts we collaborate with most closely.
Mark Paterson
Principal & Lead Systems Architect
Mark is a respected energy transformation leader with over two decades in the sector. His collaborative, systems-based approach is grounded in Engineering, Business and Master of Enterprise qualifications and his electrical-mechanical technology origins. Mark’s work at the intersection of new energy technologies, systems architecture and energy system futures is globally recognised.
In collaboration with CSIRO and AEMO, he led the development of the seminal, end-to-end Reference Architecture of the NEM focused on the integration of Distribution System Operator (DSO) and Transmission-Distribution Coordination (TDC) models. At Horizon Power and Energy Queensland he led the innovative development and scale deployment of several utility technology innovation firsts. At CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, he played leadership roles in the groundbreaking Future Grid Forum and CSIRO/ENA Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap projects.
Internationally, Mark is a Fellow of the Pacific Energy Institute and an invited Associate of the United States Department of Energy’s GridWise Architecture Council (GWAC). He is formally trained in the Systems Architecture and Grid Architecture methodologies developed respectively by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the United States Department of Energy’s Grid Modernisation Laboratory Consortium.
Matthew Bird
Director, Delivery and Operations
Matt combines formal systems engineering with disciplined delivery of complex, multi-stakeholder programs. His expertise centres on emerging Distribution System Operator models and advanced transmission–distribution coordination, where he applies Model-Based Systems Engineering and the Power Systems Architecture methodology to the whole-system challenges of integrating distributed and consumer energy resources (DER and CER). As both an electrical engineer and a systems engineer, Matt brings formal rigour to questions with little precedent, such as who should do what, and how responsibilities and information should flow between transmission, distribution and consumer, when these would otherwise be answered by intuition alone.
Under CSIRO’s Australian Research in Power Systems Transition (AR-PST) initiative, he led development of the report on transmission–distribution coordination and co-authored the DSO models report. In a recent AEMO engagement, he applied systems architecture disciplines to review AEMO’s internal mechanisms for DER modelling, operational forecasting, and telemetry and state estimation. Before that, he worked with subject matter experts from AEMO and distribution network businesses to model how emergency distributed PV curtailment is coordinated across jurisdictions.
In the program’s earlier stages, Matt helped map Australia’s largest consumer energy demonstration projects into a common reference architecture, so their operational coordination could be compared like for like. He is also co-author of Consumer Energy Unleashed, a review and gap analysis of 182 Australian consumer energy initiatives. Earlier in his career at CSIRO, he coordinated stakeholder engagement for the Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap across a register of more than 3,000 participants.
As Energy Catalyst’s Director, Delivery and Operations, Matt owns the firm’s delivery standards, quality assurance, and governance and risk controls, and oversees every client engagement at portfolio level, including scope, schedule and commercial performance. He holds a Master of Engineering Science (Systems Engineering), a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) and a Bachelor of Commerce from The University of Queensland.
Paul De Martini
Newport Consulting Group (USA)
Paul De Martini is a globally recognised expert on the business, policy, and technology dimensions of a more distributed power system. He works with utility, regulatory, and government clients on the practical application of architecture for industry transformation, including DER integration and utilization, integrated resilient system planning, and grid modernisation.
Over the past decade, Paul has advised 12 of the largest US electric utilities, over 30 US state regulatory commissions, and market operators in Australia, Canada, and the US in their transformation efforts. Paul is Managing Partner of Newport Consulting Group and a former Executive Director of the Pacific Energy Institute. He was previously technical lead for the US Department of Energy’s Transmission-Distribution-Customer Operational Coordination initiative and has been a principal contributor to the US DOE’s Grid Architecture and Integrated Distribution System Planning programmes. He previously was the chief technology and strategy officer for Cisco’s energy Internet of Things business and vice president of grid and distributed technology at Southern California Edison.
Lynne Kiesling
Northwestern University / University of Colorado Denver (USA)
Prof. Lynne Kiesling is an international thought-leader focused on advanced electricity pricing models that use transaction cost economics to examine regulation, market design, and technology in the development of retail markets, products and services and the economics of smart grid technologies in the electricity industry.
Lynne is Director of the Institute for Regulatory Law & Economics at Northwestern University, a Research Professor at the University of Colorado Denver and a member of the US Department of Energy’s Electricity Advisory Committee. She is also an emerita member of the GridWise Architecture Council (GWAC), which seeks to articulate the guiding principles for an intelligent, transactive, energy system of the future, and to guide and promote measures to transform electricity systems into a more reliable, affordable, secure network in which users collaborate with suppliers in an information and value-rich market environment.
Lorenzo Kristov
Power Markets & System Architecture Expert (USA)
Dr Lorenzo Kristov is a globally recognised expert focusing on reforming the electric power system to integrate high levels of renewable generation and distribution-connected energy resources (DER). Lorenzo has advised EPRI on its TSO-DSO Interface project and on FERC Order 2222 matters relating to the system-level integration of DER.
Based on 18 years as a Principal in market design and infrastructure policy at the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), his expertise includes: wholesale power market design; DER participation in wholesale markets; coordination of transmission & distribution operations, markets and planning; distribution system operator (DSO) models; distribution-level markets; energy resilience strategies and microgrids; and whole-system grid architecture.
Jeffrey Taft
Pacific Energy Institute (USA)
Dr Jeffrey Taft was formerly the Chief Architect for Electric Grid Transformation at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and is now a Fellow of the Pacific Energy Institute. He has played a seminal role in the development of Grid Architecture methodologies through the US Department of Energy’s Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium (GMLC). He was also a co-lead for the US DOE’s Modern Distribution Grid (DSPx) initiative. He is also a Technical Advisor to Energy Catalyst, including as Key Technical Advisor on the AR-PST Stage 4 “Navigating to Australia’s Future Grid” reports.
Jeff draws on his unique multi-disciplinary industry experience including electric power systems, software, communications, sensors and signal processing, network theory, and control systems, as well as extensive skills and experience as a system architect. He also formerly held Chief Architect positions related to grid modernization at Cisco Systems, Accenture, and IBM, as well as various engineering positions at Westinghouse Electric Company.
