John Rhodes
Acting Chief Executive Officer
On Wednesday, March 27, 2024, John Rhodes was appointed Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Long Island Power Authority by its Board of Trustees. Mr. Rhodes brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to this position. He is a true public servant having been a trusted voice on clean energy reforms to both President Biden and New York State Governor Kathy Hochul.
Mr. Rhodes comes to LIPA from the New York Department of Public Service (DPS), where he was Chief Program Officer, charged with overseeing New York’s ratepayer-funded programs for clean energy, energy efficiency, and energy affordability at New York agencies and utilities.
Before that, Mr. Rhodes was Special Assistant to the President in the Biden Administration’s Climate Policy Office, where he worked to advance the deployment of clean energy, transmission, and building and vehicle electrification solutions.
Mr. Rhodes also served as Chair of New York’s Public Service Commission (PSC) and CEO of its Department of Public Service. He developed and implemented ambitious, equitable, and practical clean energy policies to ensure reliability and to protect customers and communities. Major policies focused on distributed renewables, offshore wind, electric vehicle charging, building efficiency and electrification, data transparency, and utility bill affordability.
Mr. Rhodes was also President and CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), where he developed and implemented innovative clean energy policies and programs to combat climate change and create jobs and investments in New York’s clean energy economy, including the Clean Energy Standard, its Clean Energy Fund, the New York Green Bank, and New York Sun.
Before his time with NYSERDA, Mr. Rhodes was the Director of the Center for Market Innovation at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Other related experience includes three years at global cleantech investor Good Energies and a partner at Booz Allen Hamilton. Early in his career, John worked at Metallgesellschaft, a German mining, metals, and engineering firm, as a trader in Frankfurt and as country manager for India.
Mr. Rhodes currently teaches classes on energy policy at the Columbia University School for International and Public Affairs and at the Yale School of the Environment. He was a member of the advisory board of Rewiring America and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners Committee on Electricity and served on the boards of the American Federation for Aging Research, the Association to Save Energy, the New York Citizen’s Budget Commission, the Urban Green Council, and the New York Institute for Special Education.
Mr. Rhodes received a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and holds a master’s degree from the Yale School of Management.
