Fresh Energy is excited to welcome Claudia Partridge to our Electricity team as senior associate, transmission policy. In this role, Claudia will focus on advancing policy related to transmission planning, reliable operations, and wholesale market design, with a focus on the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) and the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) — the two Regional Transmission Organizations where Fresh Energy works to advance the clean energy transition.
Claudia grew up in southwest Minneapolis, and after high school she headed to rural Ohio to attend the College of Wooster, a small liberal arts school known for its emphasis on undergraduate research and study abroad programs — two things that drew her to the school. She studied economics with a minor in mathematics; during an environmental economics course while studying abroad in Scotland, Claudia’s interest was sparked in environmental policy. For her senior independent study project, she researched the public health costs associated with PM2.5 air pollution in the Midwest.
Claudia’s interest in environmental policy led her to graduate school in Finland, where she earned a Master of Science (Tech) in Circular Economy with a minor in energy technology from LUT University on a Fulbright Grant. The interdisciplinary program spanned economics, sustainability, and engineering, and Claudia rounded it out with a minor in management that she completed in Lithuania.
For her thesis, Claudia partnered with EKOenergy, a Finnish nonprofit ecolabel for renewable energy, to study how to mitigate tensions and create opportunities between wind farm operation and biodiversity, looking at strategies like artificial reef creation around offshore wind and wetland restoration alongside land-based projects. “It was fulfilling to share how wind farms can be beneficial to biodiversity,” said Claudia. “Since we need both clean energy and biodiversity, it’s great to find a balance in both.”
Claudia’s path to clean energy started in her undergraduate internships: the first in regional economic development with Region Nine Development Commission in the Mankato area, and another with the Neighborhood Hub and Minneapolis Climate Action, where she supported a community solar project atop North High School and got her first taste of environmental justice and community education work.
After finishing her degree, Claudia moved back to the Twin Cities and dove into networking across the energy, sustainability, and policy space. Conversations with Fresh Energy staff introduced her to our work on electric vehicles and virtual power plants. Claudia kept hearing Fresh Energy’s name when learning about transmission, transportation, and the buildings sector. “It seems like for a lot of clean energy work I was interested in, Fresh Energy was always involved, not just transmission and distribution planning, but how they intersect with the transmission and buildings sectors, too,” said Claudia. When a colleague sent her the job posting for this role, she knew right away: “This was literally the perfect opportunity for me.”
Claudia is most looking forward to representing Fresh Energy’s voice in MISO and SPP stakeholder processes, from long-term planning discussions to large load issues. She’s especially excited to dig into long-range transmission planning and MISO’s scenario-based futures process – building on the kind of scenario work she did in her master’s program but applying it to real-world transmission decisions.
Outside of work, Claudia recently joined a 7v7 soccer league, a return to the sport she played in high school and a year of college, because she wanted a group that was both active and social. She also loves to travel, and she’s a longtime fan of forest walks, a practice she picked up in Finland that now shows up on trails along the Minnesota River and Minnehaha Creek. She’s currently enjoying the tv show “Love Island,” keeping an eye to the sociological development on the show while watching on 1.5X speed.
Join us in welcoming Claudia to the team!