Kate Anderson.jpg

Kate Anderson

Strategy Lead, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

2021 U.S. C3E Social, Economic, & Policy Innovation Award Winner

Kate Anderson is the Strategy Lead at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). In this role, she aligns and integrates strategic and business planning, ensures lab investments support critical objectives, and measures progress toward lab goals.

Prior to this role, Anderson was Chief of Staff for Energy Systems Integration; she supported operations and strategic planning activities focused on power systems, energy security and resilience, systems analysis, and decision science. She coordinated energy justice activities across NREL, developing strategies to imbed equity in all phases of NREL’s work, from research through deployment. Before taking on the Chief of Staff position, Anderson was a Senior Engineer and Manager of the NREL Modeling and Analysis Group. Her team developed tools and provided techno-economic modeling and analysis to support energy deployment decisions for federal, state, and local governments, tribes, universities, and industry partners. Anderson served as the Program Lead for the development of NREL’s REopt model, employed by over 50,000 users to evaluate cost-optimal selection and sizing of energy systems and inform clean energy deployment worldwide. She also led research on quantifying the value of resilience and incorporating this value into investment decisions. During her time at NREL, Anderson’s work led to two software records for REopt and REopt Lite. In 2019, she was an R&D 100 Award nominee for REopt Lite, and in 2020, she was recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Women @ Energy STEM Rising program.

Before joining NREL, Anderson launched satellites as a captain in the U.S. Air Force and led the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Public Service Center’s program to embed science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) volunteers in K-12 schools.

Anderson has a PhD in Advanced Energy Systems from the Colorado School of Mines, an MS in Renewable Energy Science and Technology from Loughborough University, an MBA in Management of Technology from the University of New Mexico, and a BS in Aerospace Engineering from MIT.

+ Learn More About Kate Anderson's Clean Energy Journey

From Exploring Space to Conserving the Earth

Kate Anderson took an unexpected path to become a clean energy leader. In high school, she yearned to become an astronaut, which led her to study aerospace engineering at MIT and join the Air Force. She soon found herself overseeing satellite launches for the military in New Mexico. Her exposure to that area’s strong environmental principles soon sparked a new passion. “They have this wonderful tradition of green buildings: from adobe houses and straw bale houses to ‘Earthships’ made of old tires,” she recalls. “While I was there, my interest turned from space back to Earth, because I saw the importance of these sustainable building techniques.”

To pursue a career in sustainability, Anderson returned to school for a Master’s degree in renewable energy. While still working on that degree, she was interviewed and offered a job at NREL—where she immediately felt at home. “That interview was the first time in my career I’d been asked what I’m passionate about and what I want to do,” Anderson says. “I feel like that’s what makes NREL really special… everyone’s here because they’re super passionate about what they’re doing, and we all believe we’re working together to save the world.”

When Anderson arrived at NREL, Renewable Energy Integration and Optimization (REopt) was just starting as a spreadsheet tool run by a single researcher. Under Anderson’s leadership, the REopt team grew to 20 people with diverse backgrounds, all of whom helped develop REopt into a valuable software program for calculating the ideal mix of energy sources and storage devices for a building or campus. This REopt software tool shows users the best options to cost effectively save energy, reduce carbon emissions, and maintain power during grid outages. Anderson and her team have expanded REopt to include more forms of renewable energy and predict impacts of energy choices on resilience, carbon emissions, and jobs or economic factors. Today, the tool has over 40,000 users around the world.

After the initial public release four years ago, it became clear that getting REopt to make good recommendations was easier than getting users to follow them. That’s why Anderson’s current research, at NREL and in her PhD program at the Colorado School of Mines, focuses on incorporating the social and behavioral aspects of energy decisions into modeling tools. Anderson works to push NREL’s clean energy innovations into the real world. Her research examines the technical aspects of clean energy technology as well as the economic, policy, and behavioral factors that affect a technology’s uptake and use.

Anderson continues to enjoy the positive and supportive work environment at NREL and has transitioned from mentee to mentor—though she regularly learns new things from the young women she mentors. While only about 30% of NREL’s research staff are women, her team is one of the most diverse, with equal numbers of men and women. “It makes us stronger,” she says. She plans to continue her inclusive hiring practices in her position as Chief of Staff. “We can get to 90% clean energy with all of the technology we have now,” Anderson says, “But the gap between where we are now and what’s technically viable is all about people.”