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.
