Kathleen Spees
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principal
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Washington, DC
Dr. Spees is a Principal at The Brattle Group with expertise in wholesale electricity and environmental policy design and analysis.
Her work for market operators, regulators, regulated utilities, and market participants focuses on:
- Wholesale Power Market Reform
- Capacity Market Design
- Wholesale Energy and Ancillary Service Market Design
- Carbon and Environmental Policy
- Generation and Transmission Asset Valuation
- Analysis of Emerging Technologies and Specialized Products
Dr. Spees has worked in more than a dozen international jurisdictions supporting the design and enhancement of environmental policies and wholesale power markets. Her clients include electricity system operators in PJM, Midcontinent, New England, Ontario, New York, Alberta, Texas, Italy, and Australia. Electricity market design assignments involve ensuring adequacy of capacity and energy market investment incentives to achieve reliability objectives at least cost; designing carbon and clean energy policies that effectively interact with wholesale electricity markets; enhancing operational reliability and efficiency through energy market, scarcity pricing, and ancillary service market improvements; effectively integrating intermittent renewables, storage, demand response, and other emerging technologies; evaluating benefits and costs of industry reform initiatives; and enhancing efficiency at market interties.
For system operators and regulators, Dr. Spees provides expert support through stakeholder forums, independent public reports, and testimony in regulatory proceedings. For utilities and market participants, her assignments support business strategy, investment decisions, asset transactions, contract negotiation, regulatory proceedings, and litigation. Dr. Spees has developed and applied a wide range of analytical and modeling tools to inform these policy, market design, and business decisions.
Dr. Spees earned her PhD in Engineering and Public Policy within the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center and her MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. She earned her BS in Physics and Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State University.
Carnegie Mellon University
PhD in Engineering and Public Policy and MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering
Iowa State University
BS in Mechanical Engineering and Physics
Testimony
Before the FERC, Docket No. ER26-455, Affidavit of Dr. Kathleen Spees, Dr. Samuel A. Newell, and Dr. Andrew W. Thompson Regarding the Sixth Review of PJM’s Variable Resource Requirement Curve.
Before the Alberta Utilities Commission, written evidence of Dr. Kathleen Spees, Economic Assessment of Suncor's Complaint Regarding ISO Rule 203.1, submitted at the request of Albert Electric System Operator, in proceeding 29009 Complain by Suncor Energy Inc. Under Section 25 of the Electric Utilities Act Regarding Independent System Operator Rule 203.1, November 5, 2025.
Comments of Dr. Kathleen Spees and Dr. Long Lam before the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission in the Matter of an Investigation into Implementing Changes to the Renewable Energy Standard and the Newly Created Carbon Free Standard under Minnesota Statute § 216B.1691, PUC Docket No. E999/CI-23-151.
Written testimony of Kathleen Spees, Samuel A. Newell, and Linquan Bai before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Assessment of MISO's proposed Reliability Based Demand Curves (RBDCs) to be used to support resource adequacy in its Planning Resource Auctions (PRAs), submitted at the request of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), Docket No. ER23-2977-000.
