Dr. Karen Tapia-Ahumada is a Principal Team Lead in the Energy Systems and Climate Analysis Group at EPRI. Her research focuses on integrated energy system planning, primarily on energy storage and distributed energy resources in resource planning for electric power systems.
Prior to joining EPRI, Karen worked as a Research Scientist at the MIT Energy Initiative on a wide range of energy-related projects with a focus on the economic and regulatory modeling and analysis of energy systems, distributed energy resources and end-use technologies, renewable energy generation, and the techno-economic assessment of integrated energy systems. She worked on topics such as the impact of distributed energy resources and the role of rate design in their deployment, and the evolution of electric power systems under deep decarbonization goals.
Karen holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Systems and a M.S. in Technology and Policy both from MIT. Before that, she received her B.S. and a M.S. in Industrial Electrical Engineering from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
Recent Publications
- [1] Energy Storage in Long-Term Resource Planning: A Review of Modeling Approaches and Utility Practices, EPRI, 2023
- [2] Spiller, E., Esparza, R., Mohlin, K., Tapia-Ahumada, K., Ünel, B. (2023). “The role of electricity tariff design in distributed energy resource deployment,” Energy Economics, Volume 120, 2023, ISSN 0140-9883,
- [3] Vitorino, R., Ramos, D., Tapia-Ahumada, K., Paltsev, S., Reilly, J. (2023). “Pumped-hydro storage plants influencing the optimal hourly dispatch in hydro-thermal systems with massive integration of variable renewable energy,” Electric Power Systems Research, Volume 220, 2023, ISSN 0378-7796
- [4] Emerging Integrated System Planning Methods: Utility Perspectives and Applications, EPRI, 2022