Michael Eckhart is founding President and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE), a Washington DC-based nonprofit organization with over 500 organizational members. He also is U.S. co-chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE), a member of the governing Bureau and Steering Committee of the REN 21 global policy network, and co-head of the North American Secretariat of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP).

From 1995 to 2003, he developed financing for solar energy under the SolarBank initiative. He was named Renewable Energy Man of the Year of India in 1998 for training 1,000 bankers and related activities in microfinance for solar electrification, and in 1999 formed a $50 million joint venture between Shell and ESKOM in South Africa which electrified 10,000 off-grid homes with solar home systems.

He has over 25 years of experience in renewable energy, power generation, high technology, and finance. Previously, he was Chairman/CEO of United Power Systems, Inc.; Co-founder and Vice President of the venture capital firm Areté Ventures, Inc.; Manager of Strategic Planning for the Power Systems Sector of General Electric Company; and a Principal of Booz, Allen & Hamilton’s energy practice where he conducted many of the original national studies in the 1970s on emerging energy technologies including solar PV, solar heating & cooling, solar thermal-electric, windpower, hydropower, geothermal energy, cogeneration, energy storage, advanced coal combustion, gasification, liquefaction, synthetic fuels, and advanced nuclear.

Mr. Eckhart served in the US Navy Submarine Service. He received a BS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Mr. Eckhart is a 2008 recipient of the Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship, a 2006 recipient of RSA’s Good Deal for All Award, and a three-time participant in the Clinton Global Initiative.