Building Baselines: Carmen Best
Carmen Best, Chief Policy Officer at Recurve, has spent her career at the intersection of energy policy, data, and system transformation. Her path into the field spans international development, state politics, and regulatory leadership, including nearly a decade at the California Public Utilities Commission. From early work in the U.S. Senate and three years in the Peace Corps in Niger to evaluating energy efficiency programs in Wisconsin and shaping policy in California, Carmen has consistently focused on how policy translates into real-world outcomes.
Today at Recurve, she works to make demand-side resources visible, measurable, and actionable within modern energy systems. Carmen is a leading voice on demand flexibility, measurement-based policy, and the role of data in scaling clean energy solutions. In this conversation, she reflects on lessons from her unconventional career path and explains why making demand-side performance visible is key to delivering economic, climate, and reliability benefits for the grid and the people who rely on it.
It was a pleasure to sit down and learn more about Carmen for this latest issue of Building Baselines.
Your career path spans state politics, international service, and regulation as part of the California Public Utilities Commission. How have these experiences shaped your understanding of how policy gets made and what successful policy development looks like?
I became interested in climate politics and policy early, but it wasn’t until I interned in the U.S. Senate with Senator Byron Dorgan on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee that I truly understood how ideas turn into policy. That experience showed me the difference between politics and the behind-the-scenes work that drives change.
After college, I joined the Peace Corps, drawn by an international focus on climate and development. Working on the ground fundamentally shaped how I think about policy success. Well-intended policies only matter if they are implemented effectively and can adapt when they are not delivering results.
Energy became my focus during that time because of its absence. In Niger, the lack of access to reliable electricity shapes daily life and economic opportunity, reinforcing that energy policy is economic policy everywhere.
When I returned to the U.S., I was introduced to energy efficiency through Wisconsin’s Focus on Energy program, which had a rural economic development mandate. I worked on evaluating whether the program was delivering on its policy goals, which deepened my interest in measurement and accountability.
Those experiences carried through to my work at the California Public Utilities Commission, where I gained an inside view of regulatory decision-making. I eventually left the PUC to focus more directly on measurement-based solutions, which led me to Recurve. I’m grateful for the experiences that brought me here and we continue to spearhead incredible innovation on the demand side by making results tangible and actionable.
You spent three years in the Peace Corps in Niger early in your career. How did that experience influence your perspective on energy access, development, and reliability?
Growing up in North Dakota in the 1990s, economic development was always top of mind. The question for many of us was whether we would stay or leave. That early awareness shaped how I thought about opportunity long before I worked in energy. When the Peace Corps sent me to Niger, the parallels were striking. Despite very different contexts, both places faced similar pressures around subsistence, economic opportunity, and community sustainability. I even lived in a town about the same size as my hometown, which made the comparison unavoidable.
Living in Niger made clear how central energy is to health, economic stability, and resilience. Energy access affects everything from food systems to medical care, and it underscored that effective development policies must be durable. They need to be integrated into markets and systems, grounded in local realities, and aligned with available resources to last.
That lesson is even more relevant today. In Niger, a small solar installation can replace biomass fuel, provide lighting, and preserve medicines. In North Dakota, wind and solar now supply a significant share of power and support industrial development alongside oil and gas. Seeing both reinforced how place-specific energy solutions must be.
I later came to California because of its leadership in clean energy, where policies like AB 32 elevated demand-side resources in planning through the “first in the loading order.” That experience solidified my belief that clean and demand-side resources must be treated as real infrastructure, not just social programs, if they are to scale.
That is why measurement matters so much to me. Measurement is how we prove these resources deliver real value, offset real costs, and belong in integrated resource plans as priority investments. That lesson traces directly back to what I saw in Niger and how deeply energy access shapes lives and economies.
Demand flexibility delivers economic, climate, and reliability benefits when it is visible, measurable, and treated as real infrastructure.
In your bio, you describe demand flexibility as a “win-win-win” for the economy, climate, and reliability. Where do you see the biggest gap today between that promise and how the grid operates?
The biggest gap between the promise of demand flexibility and how the grid operates today is visibility. We have extensive data infrastructure, especially advanced metering, but we are not consistently using it to directly demonstrate the value of all demand-side resources.
Even in places like California, where AMI has been available for more than a decade, many efficiency programs still rely on deemed estimates rather than measured performance. As a result, we lose critical insight into when and where demand-side resources deliver value, leaving them abstract and easy to discount instead of treating them as real grid investments.
When performance is not visible or actionable, demand-side resources become vulnerable. In some seemingly unflappable jurisdictions, long-standing efficiency programs are being reduced or eliminated because they are seen as costs rather than investments. Integrated Resource Planning can help address this, but only if demand-side resources are grounded in real, measured outcomes.
There are signs of progress. California’s emergency market access programs showed that when transparency and accountability are built in, participation can scale quickly and deliver meaningful results in a short time.
The lesson is that the “win-win-win” is real – not just a tag line in my bio. Demand flexibility delivers economic, climate, and reliability benefits when it is visible, measurable, and treated as real infrastructure.
Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) still tends to prioritize supply-side investments. If demand-side resources were treated as core infrastructure, what assumptions or rules in utility planning would need to change? And how would that reshape IRP outcomes?
The first step is explicitly recognizing demand-side resources in Integrated Resource Planning. Many states already do this. Michigan, for example, requires utilities to explain how demand-side resources will be managed alongside supply-side investments, rather than treating them as an afterthought, and they just extended this principle to virtual power plans (VPPs) with a threat of disallowing capital investments if they don’t account for them as a capacity alternative.
California requires analysis to estimate the size of demand-side resources. Under the state’s “first in the loading order” framework, utilities must capture all cost-effective demand-side resources before procuring new supply-side assets, and resource plans must be carbon optimized so the carbon value of those resources is reflected in IRP modeling.
But inclusion alone is not enough. Demand-side resources need real priority, supported by measurement frameworks that estimate expected performance and track what actually shows up. Without that feedback loop, demand-side resources remain theoretical and planning assumptions stagnate.
When treated as core infrastructure, demand-side resources make IRPs more adaptive and performance-driven. Forecasts improve, investment decisions become more balanced, and planners gain confidence that these resources will deliver when and where they are needed.
Has there been evidence in Michigan and California that the additional planning steps and frameworks they’ve adopted have led to stronger outcomes for demand-side programs and resources across utilities?
The answer is mixed. In some ways these frameworks have made a difference, but there are still clear limitations.
On the positive side, states like Michigan and California are less dependent on rigid, percentage-based Energy Efficiency Resource Standards set by legislatures. Instead, utilities must explain in their IRPs how demand-side resources fit into the broader resource mix and what budgets are needed to deliver them. That approach provides more stability and aligns investments more closely with system needs, similar to how distributed resources compete in capacity markets based on their ability to deliver value.
Where the impact has been more limited is in program design and delivery. Planning exercises often establish reasonable budgets, but they do not always align with true technical or economic potential. There is also a disconnect between what is assumed in planning and what shows up in the field, partly because incentives remain focused on deploying technologies rather than delivering measurable performance.
Demand-side resources should be held to the same standard as supply-side investments. If they are counted in the plan, they need to deliver real megawatts. That requires tracking actual savings and load reductions and adjusting plans accordingly.
Potential studies could also improve. Many still rely on customer adoption or “widget-based” pricing models that estimate how many devices might be installed. While useful, these approaches can artificially constrain goals. Greater use of advanced metering data and granular analytics could provide a clearer picture of what demand-side resources can deliver and help close the gap between planning assumptions and real-world outcomes.
Virtual Power Plants are getting a lot of attention, but many remain stuck in pilot mode. In your opinion, from a policy and regulatory perspective, what is missing today? Particularly when it comes to measurement and verification, and trust, what do you believe is preventing VPPs and other demand-side resources from becoming scalable, dependable grid assets?
Virtual Power Plants have gained real momentum in recent years, in part because strong industry leadership helped normalize them as legitimate grid resources during high-profile reliability events. That visibility has mattered. One consequence, however, is that longer-term demand-side resources, such as energy efficiency, have often been left out of the VPP narrative. As VPPs have come to be defined primarily as fast, dispatchable resources, a large category of firm load modification delivered through demand-side investments has been overlooked.
Measurement is a key reason for this gap. Batteries and other dispatchable assets are easier to value because their output can be directly measured. Many demand-side resources rely on counterfactual analysis, which introduces more complexity and uncertainty. That has always been true for energy efficiency and behavioral demand response, but it does not mean those resources cannot or should not be fully incorporated into VPP frameworks.
In some regions, VPPs have already scaled significantly. Arizona is a good example, where utility-led VPPs have become flagship initiatives even as traditional efficiency programs have been reduced. One reason is that VPPs are highly visible. Regulators and utilities can observe them operating in near real time, which builds confidence and support.
As VPPs mature, the next challenge is accountability. Stakeholders increasingly want to understand their incremental impact on the grid. Many VPPs rely on device-level telemetry and DERMS platforms – which do provide critical visibility and we can also have more holistic assessments to build even more confidence with resource planners.
A complete measurement framework, one that combines device telemetry with utility meter data, would address this challenge. Seeing performance from both perspectives makes results more credible and allows VPPs to function as dependable, mainstream grid assets. This requirement is not unique to VPPs; it reflects the same standard demand-side management programs have always needed to meet to demonstrate value.
VPPs have also been effective at communicating their impact. Demonstration projects have clearly shown how these programs reduce costs, engage customers, and deliver tangible benefits. Historically, the demand side has struggled to tell that story. Visibility, accountability, and narrative are closely linked, and VPPs benefit from being associated with visible, physical assets like batteries and solar panels.
Those same principles should apply to energy efficiency and other demand-side resources. When they are measurable, transparent, and accountable, they can be treated as real infrastructure and funded accordingly.
It is also important to recognize the distinct role VPPs play relative to Integrated Resource Planning. IRPs focus on long-term system needs, while VPPs are particularly well suited to addressing short-term reliability and resource adequacy challenges. In markets like Texas, which do not rely on IRPs, VPPs can respond quickly to immediate system conditions and market signals. That flexibility is a major part of their value and a key reason they are likely to continue scaling as measurement and trust frameworks mature.
Recurve’s FLEX platform focuses on providing visibility into demand-side insights. How does that visibility change decision-making for utilities, regulators, and program implementers?
Recurve’s FLEX platform is designed to address a fundamental challenge on the demand side: the lack of shared, actionable visibility into what is possible and what is actually happening.
The platform has two core components. FLEX Insights supports planning by giving utilities, program administrators, and regulators access to structured data on consumption patterns across a service territory. By combining advanced metering data with weather-sensitive analytics, users can isolate end uses such as heating, cooling, and baseload at both the customer and portfolio level. This allows teams to test how different program strategies, including electrification, income-qualified programs, or commercial approaches, might perform in practice.
Because the data is flexible and structured, users can incorporate cost-effectiveness metrics, greenhouse gas impacts, peak demand impacts, bill impacts, and grid-level considerations like substation constraints. The goal is to help decision-makers identify where demand-side investments are likely to deliver the greatest value and how they align with broader system plans before programs are launched.
FLEX Programs focuses on execution and performance. It provides near–real-time visibility into how programs perform once they are in the field. Program administrators can identify eligible customers, support targeted outreach, and track enrollment and project activity as it occurs.
As projects are implemented, FLEX captures detailed information on each site, including installed technologies, expected savings, and delivery partners. Measurement and verification tools track actual performance, allowing results to be viewed at the individual project level or across entire programs and portfolios.
That visibility can be securely shared with internal teams, participating contractors, and even regulators through role-based access. Instead of relying on periodic static reports, stakeholders work from a common, up-to-date view of performance. This reduces friction, improves accountability, and makes it easier to refine programs and scale what works.
For performance-based programs, FLEX also supports settlement by operationalizing program rules around value delivery and compensation. By making performance transparent and verifiable, the platform helps demand-side resources function more like real infrastructure within the energy system.
Let’s dream a bit. Tomorrow, you wake up, and every utility can deliver a complete data set for the built world. Utility program owners can use it to empower and inform their programs. Customers and building owners can use it to make smarter decisions for their buildings. Demand-side performance data is clear, trusted, and widely available. What are you most excited about and why? What else do you think is possible with this whole building data access?
If that level of data access were available, the most exciting thing is that it would finally answer the question, “Is it real?” Data is the currency that makes demand-side resources credible. When performance data is clear and trusted, it lifts the veil on what kind of value these resources are delivering, and that changes everything.
Once that barrier is removed, it unlocks a new wave of innovation. We have seen enormous creativity in the energy industry over the past decade, but one of the most persistent constraints has been data access. Who gets access to what data, and when, creates friction at every stage. Removing that friction lowers the barrier to entry for new solutions and allows ideas to move faster from concept to scale.
It also enables solutions that are much better aligned with customer needs. Instead of forcing customers to fit into rigid, pre-defined program designs, customers and building owners could ask for what they want. Programs could respond to real demand rather than relying on assumptions about behavior or preferences.
The same shift applies to contractors and aggregators. In performance-based, technology-agnostic programs, they are paid for delivering outcomes, not for installing specific equipment or navigating complex rebate rules. That frees them to innovate and focus on results instead of paperwork and compliance.
Ultimately, widespread access to trusted building and demand-side data would move the system away from guesswork and toward outcomes. It would make demand-side resources real, scalable, and responsive in a way that simply is not possible today. To be clear, maintaining privacy is not something to throw out the window and we have found that providing secure role-based access with controls bounded by existing policies, also have tremendous value in reducing friction by delivering actionable intelligence.
Data is the currency that makes demand-side resources credible.
Do you have any advice for early-stage professionals trying to get into energy policy?
My advice is to build real technical depth alongside your policy interests. Early in my career, I focused on science and math in structured environments like graduate school. That foundation gave me both discipline and confidence, and it has served me throughout my work in energy policy.
All of my degrees are in the sciences, and I learned policy as a complementary skill rather than the other way around. Even though my career has been entirely in the policy space, having a strong technical background allowed me to engage more effectively and make better decisions. In energy, policies ultimately have to align with physical reality. The politics may change, but the physics does not.
That does not mean everyone needs to become a physicist. In my case, it was geology. Others come from engineering, economics, or law. There are many paths into the field. What matters is bringing something substantive to the table beyond policy process alone.
I also encourage early-career professionals to be open to creating their own path. When I was in school, formal environmental policy programs were rare, so many of us built our careers by combining disciplines. Today there are more dedicated policy programs, which is a great thing, but I still believe the strongest practitioners are those who pair policy expertise with a deep understanding of how some existing system works and how energy connects to it.
Energy policy needs people who can translate between technical reality and regulatory decisions. Developing that ability early will open more doors and make your work more impactful.
Speed Round
If you could have dinner with any three people in the world, who would it be and why?
Coming into this space in the 90’s means Al Gore would absolutely be on the guest list. I’d also invite Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. I was at the California Public Utilities Commission during Schwarzenegger’s administration, when policies like the “first in the loading order” for energy efficiency were adopted. He also supported the California Solar Initiative and cap-and-trade, advancing a set of creative and forward-looking ideas that had a lasting impact. Secretary Granholm shares that same spirit of bold, pragmatic leadership, for a clean energy economy which is why she’d round out the table.
What’s a book, article, or idea that most influenced how you think about energy, systems, or policy—but might surprise people?
One book that’s influenced how I think about energy systems is Edison to Enron, especially the early chapters on Samuel Insull. He played a central role in building electric infrastructure in Chicago and helped shape the regulatory model we still use today, recognizing that utility investment could drive both urban and rural economic development.
What stands out is how intentional he was about load management long before we used that term. He focused on building infrastructure, increasing adoption of electric technologies, and improving system utilization. That mindset still feels highly relevant.
The Enron portion is also interesting as a reminder of how disruptive new business models can reshape markets. But what resonates most with me is the Industrial Revolution context. It highlights that many of today’s challenges around regulation, load, and system design have deep historical roots.
If you weren’t working in energy policy, what do you think you’d be doing instead?
I would have joined the U.S. Foreign Service. That was my original plan when I joined the Peace Corps. I’ve always been drawn to diplomacy and to solving complex problems collaboratively across cultures and systems.
Life took me in a different direction when I returned to the U.S., and energy became my focus, but that interest in diplomacy never really went away. At its core, diplomacy is about navigating uncertainty, managing relationships, and finding shared solutions, and that mindset still resonates with me.
In some ways, I feel like I still get to be a diplomat through my work in energy. Each state’s energy system functions almost like its own country, with distinct rules, cultures, and priorities. Having worked in California during an era of early clean energy experimentation and now engaging with markets like Texas, the experience often feels like a form of cultural exchange. There are real differences in how systems are designed and how decisions get made but also shared challenges.
Energy and climate are fundamentally global issues, even though the solutions have to be local. Access to fossil and renewable resources are shaped by geography and natural conditions; the built environment is the culmination of history, planning and available materials. What works in one place may not work in another. That need to balance global goals with localized solutions is one of the reasons I find this work so compelling. In the end, whether through diplomacy or energy policy, the work is about managing complex systems and helping them function better for people to thrive.
Thank you, Carmen, for sharing your time and insights. Your perspective on data, demand-side resources, and the future of energy systems brings clarity to some of the industry’s most complex challenges, and we’re grateful to include your voice in Building Baselines.
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