Pramod Kulkarni

Pramod Kulkarni is a Senior Advisor at the Customized Energy Solutions’ Emerging Technologies Group focusing on the developments in regulations, technologies and markets that create opportunities for clients in the energy storage sector in the US and India. Pramod brings 30+ years of experience of developing, financing and commercializing energy technologies. Prior to joining Customized Energy Solutions, for 22 years Pramod worked at the California Energy Commission where he initiated and then managed a program to fund development and demonstration of energy storage technologies. Several of these projects laid the foundation for commercialization of important energy technologies in California’s dynamic energy markets. In the 90s and early 00s Pramod actively and successfully advocated for energy storage technologies to mitigate energy issues such as peak load reduction or load management, and championed for budgets for energy storage technology development and demonstrations. In his effort to develop and demonstrate energy storage technologies Pramod actively collaborated with the US Department of Energy and the US national energy laboratories such as the Sandia National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Active collaboration between California and the US Department of Energy (a federal government agency) became a model for US Department’s partnership agreements with other states in the US. Pramod has also been a reviewer for the US DOE’s energy storage technology program since 1998, and was an advisor for the DOE/EPRI’s 2013 Handbook of Energy Storage. Pramod has also made numerous presentations on expanding role of energy storage for renewable integration, grid management and microgrids. Before joining the Energy Commission Pramod worked for a Fortune 100 company, an energy consulting company, an angel investor and a startup company. Pramod has a BS and MS from India and an MBA from USA.