Dr. Aranya Venkatesh is a Principal Technical Leader in the Energy Systems and Climate Analysis Group at EPRI. Her research focuses on modeling energy infrastructure development for both the US and international regions. Dr. Venkatesh has extensive expertise in systems modeling, optimization, and data analysis for energy technology and environmental assessment. Her current research explores economy-wide decarbonization pathways, low-carbon fuel exports, and the impacts of energy and climate policies. She is a contributing author to the IPCC WGIII 6th Climate Assessment Report.
Before joining EPRI, Dr. Venkatesh most recently served as a Research Scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and was the Executive Director of the Open Energy Outlook initiative, which explores decarbonization pathways for the US energy system using open-source models and data.
Dr. Venkatesh holds an MS and PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and a BE in Chemical Engineering from Thadomal Shahani Engineering College.
Recent Publications
- [1] Bistline, J. et al. (2025) Impacts of EPA's finalized power plant greenhouse gas standards. Science 387, 140-143.
- [2] Mouat, G. et al. (2025) State-led climate action can cut emissions at near-federal costs but favors different technologies. Nature Communications 16, 4635.
- [3] Blackhurst, M., Venkatesh, A. et al. (2025) Marginal abatement costs for greenhouse gas emissions in the United States using an energy systems approach. Environmental Research: Energy 2, 015012.
- [4] Sinha, A., Venkatesh, A. et al. (2024) Diverse decarbonization pathways under near cost-optimal futures. Nature Communications 15, 8165.
- [5] Examining Scenarios of e-gas Exports from the United States: Evaluating Energy System Impacts with US-REGEN, EPRI Report 3002034176.
- [6] Mignone et al. (2024) Drivers and implications of alternative routes to fuels decarbonization in net-zero energy systems. Nature Communications
- [7] Musselman, A., Thomas, V.M., Nazzal, D., Papageorgiou, D.J., Venkatesh, A., Mallapragada, D.S. (2022) The impact of development priorities on power system expansion planning in sub-Saharan Africa. Energy Syst 13, 461–492.
- [8] Kumar, Y., Hoesly, R., Venkatesh, A., Shuster, E., and Iyengar, A. (2022) Effects of Short-Term Water Constraints on Electricity Dispatch: A Case Study of ERCOT and SPP Regions. ACS EST Water 2, 5, 749–758.
- [9] DeCarolis et al. (2020) Leveraging Open-Source Tools for Collaborative Macro-energy System Modeling Efforts, Joule, 4, 12, 2523-2526.