Bernard Speckman

Mr. Speckman has over 39 years of engineering, operation, and contracts experience with electric production, transmission and systems control, and optimization. He is responsible for all transmission and distribution consulting services and has managed several significant distribution optimization projects in California and China. His extensive experience with planning, analysis, and unbundling of transmission systems the development of grid codes, the design of operating and control systems necessary to support open access systems, the unbundling of ancillary services, the development of generator interconnection requirements and agreements, and transmission and ancillary service pricing.

Barney’s recent focus has been on renewables integration and distributed energy resources (DER) implementation. For renewable integration, he examines the ways to address the potential impacts of introducing high levels of the renewables into the grid, including storage (short, mid and long term), improved forecasting and controls, and non-traditional planning and operation of transmission collection systems and thermal solar power station storage. For DER penetration on the distribution grid, Barney focuses on how the distribution planning process must be changed to accommodate DERs and the infrastructure and systems needed to accommodate a transactive grid.

Barney’s clients have included many of the country’s largest utilities, such as Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison, (SCE), Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), Silicon Valley Power Company (SVP), Puget Sound Energy (PSE), and eSolar. Barney was the Project Manager for the CAISO’s ongoing series of studies to determine the impacts of implementing a 33% Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) in California. He was part of the team that assisted Roseville Electric in the planning and implementation of their first Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) and the update five years later. Recently, he supported the development of a Five-Year Vision and Plan for SMUD’s grid related business functions.