Robbie Orvis
Director of Energy Policy Design
Robbie Orvis is the Director of Energy Policy Design at Energy Innovation, where he works on the firm’s Energy Policy Solutions and Power Sector Transformation programs. For Energy Policy Solutions, he conducts analysis on which policies can most effectively help meet climate and energy goals. As part of this program, Robbie co-leads a project for the Chinese government to provide policy guidance for its 13th Five Year Plan and climate strategy.
Robbie is also a contributor to America’s Power Plan, a project of the Power Sector Transformation program that curates expert thinking on policy solutions for a clean, reliable, and affordable U.S. power system. For this project, he focuses on wholesale electricity markets and energy efficiency policy. His research on wholesale markets focuses on market designs and practices that help enable a high renewable energy future. Robbie’s work on energy efficiency policy focuses on how to design programs that can unlock greater energy efficiency investments using performance-based regulation.
Prior to joining Energy Innovation in 2014, Robbie received his Master of Environmental Management from Yale University. While at Yale, Robbie worked on a variety of energy issues, from evaluating utility rate decoupling to designing city-wide energy efficiency policy. He also spent a summer consulting for the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee on energy efficiency programs.
From 2010 to 2012, Robbie was a Research Analyst at the Environmental Integrity Project in Washington, D.C. where he researched regulatory, monitoring, and enforcement issues at power plants and refineries across the U.S to help hold large polluters accountable for their emissions.
Robbie graduated with honors from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.S. in Society and Environment. Between his junior and senior years, Robbie interned at the Natural Resources Defense Council in D.C., working to help pass the cap-and-trade climate bill in the House of Representatives.