About us

Dr. David Kathan, President of Kathan Energy Consulting, is a recognized thought-leader on grid-edge policies and technologies, with detailed technical and regulatory expertise on the integration of demand response and distributed energy resources. His career spans the private and public sectors, with extensive experience in the federal government, including the U.S. Congress, FERC, and the White House. Throughout his career, Dr. Kathan has tackled difficult economic and policy challenges and developed sound analysis and policies that supported profound industry transformations. Dr. Kathan regularly speaks on demand response, distributed energy resources, and smart grid topics before domestic and international audiences.

Prior to forming Kathan Energy Consulting, Dr. Kathan spent 20 years as a Senior Economist in the Office of Energy Policy and Innovation at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  At FERC, Dr. Kathan applied his detailed knowledge of electric power regulation, wholesale market design, retail electric power, and the electric industry transformation to the development and issuance of industry-changing FERC policies and cases. Dr. Kathan designed and led development of Order No. 719. which established demand response aggregators as wholesale market participants. He was the primary architect and leader of the game-changing recent Order No. 2222, which opened up the wholesale market to distributed energy resources, and led the development, drafting, and issuance of the order. Dr. Kathan also helped issue Order No. 841 on electric storage resources, and supported the litigation that resulted in the important FERC v. EPSA Supreme Court decision. Dr. Kathan served as the lead analyst and team leader on FERC's annual demand response and advanced metering reports, and led FERC's National Action Plan on Demand Response.    In addition to these roles, Dr. Kathan also worked on market design issues, including demand response, smart grid, storage, and distributed energy resources integration.

During 2013, Dr. Kathan was on temporary assignment to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where he focused on federal agency demand management issues, and was responsible for the issuance of a Presidential Memorandum on federal agency energy management in December 2013.  Prior to joining FERC, Dr. Kathan was a Principal at ICF Consulting, where he consulted on economic, environmental and quantitative issues related to the electric power industry, with a focus on demand response and electric system modeling.  He has also held posts at National Economic Research Associates, Synergic Resources Corporation, and the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment.  Dr. Kathan received his B.A. from Grinnell College in Economics, and his Ph.D. in Public Policy and Management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.