Vice President & Senior Director, Distributed Energy Resources (DER) Practice Area Lead
Tom Michelman, Vice President & Senior Director, Distributed Energy Resources (DER) Practice Area Lead, joined SEA in 2013 and has over thirty years of experience in electric industry and renewable, retail & wholesale energy markets.
Tom has led deep dive analyses of DER renewable markets covering more than a dozen state markets as well as market entry / opportunity assessments that have covered all the US DER state markets. Highlighted analyses include DER revenue forecasting using SEA’s Revenue Stack AdvantageSM Approach to provide a robust market fundamentals approach to variable gross income forecasting, total addressable market assessments, queue forecasting, manager of SEA’s NY VDER custom calculator, and market fundamentals supply, demand, price forecasting of the Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Maryland SREC markets, including SREC market expert witness engagements.
Some of Tom’s recent public policy consulting highlights include analyses for state energy offices, commissions, in managing a ME PUC study on benefits-costs of solar for the legislature (2023-present, see link to 2023 report), co-managing 2024 MA SMART 2.0 study, and in 2026 acting as the Joint Solar Advocates’ (i.e., CCSA and SEIA) expert witness in FirstEnergy of PA’s approval of its default service plan, Docket No. P-2026-3060298 regarding proposed changes in net metering rules and compensation.
Previous highlights include managing / prominent roles in ME Governor’s Energy Office NEB 2.0 study, SMART Programmatic Review for Task 1 and Task 2, Massachusetts Post-1600 MW Solar Incentive Program Report, MA Net Metering and Solar Task Force and the 2019 New Jersey SREC Successor Program Study. For the government of Panama, Tom managed a review of the status, options, and repercussions for modifying DG incentives, market design, and facilitating infrastructure (e.g., smart meter deployment).
For public clients he has conducted due diligence and advised on the terms and conditions for a variety of power purchase / net metering offtake agreements and procurements. He innovatively structured, drafted and led sophisticated RFPs for clients seeking net zero status that incorporate the upside of battery storage savings and revenue capture via a shared savings / benefit structure.
For institutional clients, a municipal opt-out aggregator, and a community solar back-office firm, he has conducted market research, supported planning and operations, and analyzed various methods of renewable energy procurement to satisfy environmental and additionality goals.
For NGO’s he has provided critiques and recommendations for restructuring the Maryland SREC market, and provided statistical analysis that NYSERDA is using interconnection cost estimates far lower than what is incurred in practice to set DER incentives levels.
Prior to joining SEA Tom co-founded and was a Principal at Boreal Renewable Energy Development for ten years to cost effectively implement distributed generation renewable energy projects. Tom’s focus was utility scale distributed wind and solar generation at commercial, industrial, municipal, and institutional sites.
Prior to founding Boreal, Tom worked as an energy consultant for KEMA (formerly XENERGY and now DNV GL) for ten years primarily focusing on and co-managing their retail energy practice and analyzing the impact of energy efficiency programs.
Tom has an M.S. in Resource Economics from the University of Rhode Island, and B.A. in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences and Political Science from Northwestern University.