Joel Danforth

Distributed Energy Resources Manager
Platte River Power Authority

An innovative program manager with over ten years of experience in distributed energy research and deployment, Joel is Distributed Energy Resources Manager at Platte River Power Authority. Prior to his current position, he was Customer Services Program Manager, also at Platte River. Before joining the company in 2014, Joel was a project manager in the ETEC labs group at ECOtality, which focused on advanced vehicle testing & evaluation program infrastructure: EVSE/DCFCs, battery testing, and grid storage.

Prior to ECOtality, Joel was a project officer in the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Commercialization & Project Management, where he worked on Energy Efficiency & Conservation Block Grants at the city, county, and state levels in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. The $75 million program portfolio includes LED streetlight and traffic signal retrofits, distributed generation including over 550kW of installed photovoltaic capacity, and 6,757,254 building square feet retrofitted.

Joel also worked as a power plants analyst at Ventyx, where he focused on power plant projects in the Western United States specializing in capital cost trends, project schedules, and renewable power plants. He conducted research and analysis of power system upgrades, including permitting, finance, design, procurement, and construction.

Joel holds a BS in energy infrastructure with a minor in physics from the Metropolitan State University of Denver.