Co-founder and Chief Energy Economist, Lumen Energy Strategy

Mariko leads the ratepayer benefits analysis of the decision support tools as a contributor to the Wildfire Forecasting Team. Her responsibilities include compiling historical and planning-related industry and utility data on wildfire risks and on various wildfire impacts on ratepayers (e.g., cost of outages, equipment, or property damage); translating the teams’ and utilities’ assessments of incremental improvements in mitigation decisions into a plausible outlook on events plus incremental changes in mitigation outcomes; calculating the cost and benefits of incremental changes in mitigation outcomes; and calculating cost-benefit metrics across the study horizon and evaluating the cost-effectiveness of the proposed decision support tools. Mariko has 15 years of experience in analyzing the policies and economics of electricity system planning, regulation and deregulation of electricity supply, and wholesale electricity markets across the US. She has conducted cost-benefit analysis in a wide variety of engagements, including resource planning/investment strategies, wholesale market expansion and redesign, and ratepayer impacts in California. Mariko holds a master’s in Applied Economics from Northeastern University.