Joseph Nyangon

Joseph Nyangon is an American energy economist, clean energy executive, energy market transformation and technology advisor with a background in engineering. He is the Deputy Director for Partnerships at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of State and Community Energy Programs. In this role, he oversees the implementation of home energy rebates, and building codes and performance standards, managing over $10 billion in investments created by the Inflation Reduction Act to support U.S. states, territories, tribes, and local governments implement home energy upgrades.

Nyangon has a diverse professional background, including a previous role as Senior Advisor on power systems, electrification, and market innovation at SAS Institute. He has also been a non-resident fellow at the Payne Institute at Colorado School of Mines and at Johns Hopkins University. Additionally, he has served as a Senior Consultant at the Canadian-based International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), and as a Climate Change Observer at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Furthermore, he has worked as an energy policy consultant at the United Nations in New York.

Education
Dr. Nyangon holds a B.Sc. in Engineering from the University of Nairobi, where he served as President of the Engineering Students Association, representing over 2,500 students in the Student Organization of Nairobi University (SONU). He earned a M.Sc. in Computing and Information Systems from the University of Greenwich, and an MPA from Columbia University. Nyangon completed his PhD in Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Delaware, where his research focused on power systems, energy economics, and integrating distributed energy resources into electricity resource planning under the supervision of Professor John Byrne. From 2018 to 2020, Nyangon conducted postdoctoral research at the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy & Administration at the University of Delaware. His research explored the economics of bifacial and dual orientation photovoltaic tracking systems for city-scale solar deployment.

Throughout his academic career, Nyangon has worked with other distinguished scholars, including Steven A. Cohen, Professor of Public Management and Environmental Policy at Columbia University, Michael Gerrard, Professor of Legal Studies at Columbia Law School, Morgan Bazilian, Professor of Energy and Climate Change Policy at Colorado School of Mines, and Damilola Olawuyi, Professor of International Energy and Environmental Law at Hamad Bin Khalifa University.

Career and Research
Nyangon's expertise include electricity market innovation, integrated resource planning, infrastructure investment, risk pricing, and energy policy analysis. In 2024, he joined the U.S. Department of Energy to lead the $8.8 billion Home Energy Rebates and the $1.25 billion Building Codes and Performance Standards programs. These initiatives aim to advance energy efficiency, electrification, industrial policy, and local economic transformation, while enhancing U.S. building performance standards, grid infrastructure investment, and market competitiveness. In 2020, Nyangon joined the energy and utilities division at SAS Institute, where he led the design and development of advanced analytics solutions. His work leveraged AI, machine learning, IoT, and predictive analytics technologies to address electrification, decarbonization, and digital transformation challenges in the power and utilities industry. He also investigated the unintended impacts of public policy using AI tools, focusing on the interaction between greenhouse gas emissions growth and energy infrastructure modernization in the southeastern United States.[12] Additionally, he has conducted techno-economic assessments and life cycle analyses of carbon capture, utilization, and storage.[11] Nyangon has examined electricity market design and regulatory innovations for distributed electricity systems, assessing alternative utility regulations and pioneering grid modernization business models such as New York's Reforming the Energy Vision, Great Britain's RIIO (Revenue = Incentives + Innovation + Outputs), Illinois's NextGrid, California's Energy Savings and Performance Incentive, Germany's Energiewende, and the Australian Energy Market Commission's Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap. He has held various academic and research positions, including Senior Research Fellow at the Foundation for Renewable Energy and Environment (FREE), Non-Resident Fellow at the Payne Institute of Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines, Research Fellow at Johns Hopkins University's Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy (ISEP).

Awards and Recognition
Nyangon has received numerous awards and fellowships. In 2024, he received an award as one of the top 100 most influential people of African descent in support of the United Nations International Decade of African Descent (2015–2024). He is a member of several national and international professional bodies, including a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the International Association of Energy Economics. In 2022, Nyangon was appointed as a member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council. He is a regular media commentator on all aspects of energy and environmental policy.

Publications

 * Nyangon, J. (2024). Advancements in Hydrogen Energy Systems: A Review of Levelized Costs, Financial Incentives and Technological Innovations
 * Nyangon, J. (2024). Climate-Proofing Critical Energy Infrastructure: Smart Grids, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning for Power System Resilience Against Extreme Weather Events
 * Nyangon, J. and Akintunde, R. (2024). Principal Component Analysis of Day-Ahead Electricity Price Forecasting in CAISO and its Implications for Highly Integrated Renewable Energy Markets
 * Nyangon, J. and Byrne, J. (2023). Estimating the Impacts of Natural Gas Power Generation Growth on Solar Electricity Development: PJM's Evolving Resource Mix and Ramping Capability
 * Byrne, J., Taminiau, J. and Nyangon, J. (2022). American Policy Conflict in the Hothouse: Exploring the Politics of Climate Inaction and Polycentric Rebellion
 * Nyangon, J., and Byrne, J. (2022). Spatial Energy Efficiency Patterns in New York and Implications for Energy Demand and the Rebound Effect
 * Nyangon, J. (2020). Smart Energy Frameworks for Smart Cities: The Need for Polycentrism
 * Nyangon, J. and Byrne, J. (2018). An assessment of price convergence between natural gas and solar photovoltaic in the U.S. electricity market
 * Nyangon, J. (2015). The US Shale Gas Revolution and Its Implications for International Energy Policy

Commentaries

 * "Nyangon, J. "How New Regulations Could Streamline Climate-Related Financial Risk Disclosures, " SAS Institute, May 4, 2022.
 * "Nyangon, J. "How Connectivity Resets the Oil and Gas Digital Transformation Agenda, " LinkedIn, September 29, 2021.
 * "Nyangon, J. "How New Energy Resources Affect the Global Economy, " Yahoo! Finance, July 30, 2021.
 * "Nyangon, J. "How China Can Shape the Future of Carbon Markets, " Energy Central, February 24, 2016.
 * "Nyangon, J. "Why the U.S. Urgently Needs to Invest in a Modern Energy System, " Energy Central, September 20, 2015.
 * "Nyangon, J. "WThe US Shale Gas Revolution and Its Implications for International Energy Policy, " Energy Central, September 20, 2015.