Person Bethel Tarekegne

Bethel is a systems engineer at PNNL with a research focused on understanding the social impacts of renewable and distributed energy systems. She currently leads research projects on energy equity and justice (EEJ) on energy storage, distributed wind, and marine energy adoption and deployment. In addition to technology-based EEJ studies, she leads broad EEJ efforts including advancing the application of EEJ in power systems and grid planning through electric utility technical assistance, integrating EEJ values in coal power plant redevelopment and community revitalization processes, and assessing EEJ impact projections on national decarbonization scenarios. Bethel received her doctorate in Energy & Environmental Policy from Michigan Technological University. She also holds a master’s degree in Energy Policy from University of Maryland, College Park and a bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from Benedict College.