Bruce Biewald

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

Education

BS Architecture, Building Technology, and Energy Use in Buildings, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Bruce Biewald

Bruce Biewald is the co-founder and CEO of Synapse Energy Economics. He founded Synapse in 1996 to remedy the entrenched decision-making practices that impede progress towards better energy systems in the United States. Through robust economic analysis and electric-sector modeling, he has supported client efforts to chip away at the dominance of polluting and inefficient fossil plants. From the start, Bruce has been training and cultivating a group of Synapse experts who understand what is needed to get our complex energy systems where they need to be in a climate-challenged world. Focused on the intersection of energy, economics, and the environment, Synapse provides rigorous analysis for our clients in the public interest and governmental realms. Our experts provide technical, quantitative, and policy analysis to help clients improve planning, policies, and decision-making in the energy sector. Bruce himself specializes in helping team members and clients strategize over particularly thorny issues.

Bruce brings over 30 years of consulting experience on issues of energy economics and electric industry regulation. He has coauthored more than 100 reports and has testified in more than 100 cases, including utility regulatory proceedings in 25 states, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, two Canadian provinces, before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in state and federal courts.
 
His many publications include studies for the Electric Power Research Institute, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Technology Assessment, the New England Governors’ Conference, the New England Conference of Public Utility Commissioners, the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the National Commission in Energy Policy, the Ozone Transport Commission, the PJM Interconnection, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Prior to founding Synapse, Bruce was employed for 15 years at Energy Systems Research Group, which later became the Tellus Institute. Rising to senior scientist and manager of the company’s electricity program, he was responsible for research and consulting on all aspects of electric system planning, regulation, and restructuring.

He currently spends his time looking for new and innovative ways to disrupt bad energy and climate planning, chatting with fellow energy nerds on the Energy Nerd Show & Tell podcast, and teaching his grandkids to always question the status quo.