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Faith Corneille

Global Power Sector Program Manager and Team Lead, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Energy Resources

2021 U.S. C3E Government Award Winner

Faith Corneille manages the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Energy Resources’ (ENR) Power Sector Program, which provides technical assistance to foreign partner governments to strengthen electricity markets and power systems and advance power sector decarbonization, resiliency, clean energy investment, and electricity access goals. Corneille designs and leads implementation of engagements in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean, resulting in increased use of renewable energy, improved clean energy and distributed generation regulations; increased cross-border power trade; competitive tenders for renewable energy capacity; U.S. development finance in energy projects; and capacity building in foreign energy ministries, electric utilities, and regulators.

From 2015 to 2018, Corneille served in the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica as ENR’s Senior Regional Energy Advisor, advising the U.S. Government on a Presidential Energy Security Task Force, energy markets across Latin America, and regional electricity integration efforts in Central America and the Andes. Corneille previously served as ENR’s Acting Director and Deputy Director for the Office of Electricity and Energy Efficiency in Washington D.C., where she led a team coordinating energy transformation policy and analysis of global electricity markets, clean energy finance, and energy efficiency. She began her energy career as the Regional Energy Officer for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, where she supported energy policy dialogues and launched Presidential clean energy partnerships between U.S., Latin American, and Caribbean governments. Corneille joined the U.S. government as a Presidential Management Fellow. Before starting her career in government, she worked for The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, where she organized election observations in Latin America involving heads of state. She has earned multiple Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards and, in 2021, was recognized in the Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for her work in Central America.

Corneille holds Master’s degrees in Public Administration and International Affairs from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and Bachelor’s degrees in International Affairs and Spanish from the University of New Hampshire.

+ Learn More About Faith Corneille's Clean Energy Journey

Empowering Developing Nations, Sustainably

Corneille wrote her college thesis on ecofeminism and sustainable development in Costa Rica, and circumstances brought her to question what happens when women challenge authority on questions of conservation and government action. “I have always been interested in environmental conservation,” Corneille explains, “and was drawn to issues of marginalized communities and poverty and how that affects people in different ways. In college, I started to gravitate towards development issues in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

From there, she went to Nicaragua and witnessed, first-hand, how women in poverty-stricken countries are impacted by limited development—how mothers and their children cope without access to basic services, such as electricity and clean water. That experience led her to The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, where she worked on election observations in Latin America and other democracy-strengthening initiatives with current and former heads of state. She saw government’s potential for powerful and enduring impacts on development issues. During graduate school, Corneille interned at the U.S. Department of State, then became a Presidential Management Fellow, and ultimately was invited to apply for an energy position in the Western Hemisphere Affairs Bureau. There, she learned to fully appreciate the complexities of foreign policy and the challenges for countries that depend on one fuel source and are also reliant on one or two countries for their energy supply.

“Renewables became an important way to help these countries have breathing room. It was energy security: diversify your electricity supplies with wind, solar, and geothermal, and that helps you withstand any shock, any disruption in supply.”

“The intersection of environment, energy, and economic growth—it underpins everything. If a country doesn't have affordable or reliable power, it's very hard to make good development choices or to attract investment, to attract companies to the country to create jobs… And then you look at climate change and the impacts that some of these smaller countries are already facing.”

Corneille has worked tirelessly to bring clean energy to developing countries throughout Asia and Latin America. She works with foreign governments to help find policies and financing mechanisms to develop energy systems that meet their societies’ needs—now and into the future. She leads the Power Sector Program team that manages over $25 million in foreign assistance funding that currently benefits more than 20 foreign electricity market authorities worldwide and has benefited more than 50 foreign governments.

A high point of Corneille’s tenure at the State Department came during the Obama administration’s 2009 Summit of the Americas, a hemispheric event that involved 34 heads of state. Corneille was one of three people working to design and launch the resulting Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas, a flexible, collaborative mechanism for any government in the region to promote clean energy and climate cooperation. Ten years and two administrations later, the clean energy partnership remains fully engaged and underway. Another memorable experience was in 2016 when Corneille was invited to teach, in Spanish, 100 high-school aged girls from Chile, Peru, Mexico, and the United States about energy. Having had an internship focused on Model United Nations (UN), Corneille created a “mashup” clean energy simulation where the girls, grouped into teams or “official delegations,” set time-bound renewable energy and electricity access goals, negotiated cross-border electricity interconnections agreements, and secured financial support from UN agencies and the International Renewable Energy Agency. The clean energy Model UN taught the girls about energy diplomacy and the importance of collaboration and persuasion in building a more sustainable and equitable energy future.

Corneille continues to support energy policy dialogues and clean energy partnerships worldwide, involving the U.S. and foreign governments. She has served as senior regional policy advisor for Latin America. The PSP technical assistance she leads is helping incentivize rooftop solar in Costa Rica, distributed generation across Central America, and facilitated Ecuador’s first-ever transparent international tenders for wind and solar projects. In Vietnam, her work helps the country reliably manage impacts of a 50-fold increase in solar generation from 300 megawatts to 16 gigawatts—enough power to illuminate approximately 132 million light bulbs. In Thailand, her work is helping the country prepare for scaling up wind and solar, advanced meters, electric vehicles, peer-to-peer clean energy trading, and cross-border power trade across Southeast Asia.