Becky Xilu Li

Becky Xilu Li is a Manager in RMI’s Carbon-Free Electricity Practice, where she leads research and collaboration on utility planning, cost allocation, and electricity affordability. Her work focuses on how utilities and regulators can manage investment and ratepayer risks as electricity demand grows and the grid evolves. 

Becky develops analytical frameworks and financial models to inform decisions on distribution investment, ratemaking, cost recovery, and emerging large loads. She works closely with regulators, utilities, consumer advocates, and other stakeholders to translate analysis into practical approaches that support affordable and reliable electricity service. 

During her time at RMI, Becky has worked across a range of electricity-sector topics, including utility decarbonization and transition finance, electricity market and rate design, corporate renewable energy procurement, and grid reliability and resilience.

Background

Prior to RMI, Becky was in the master program at Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley. During her time in school, she also served as policy and business consultant in several projects. In a project with Sonoma County Water Agency, she helped design behavioral energy efficiency program for Community Choice Aggregation (CCA). She also had experience in business strategic plan of clean technology. She worked with SunPower to develop their potential market strategy roadmap, and conducted market research and interviews for an ARPA-E funded cleantech research team to design business plan for commercialization. Most recently she worked at the Grid Integration Group in Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) on a consulting project for California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to help them assess the technical, economic and market potential of Demand Response (DR) in California in the next 10 years.

Before coming to the US, Becky studied economics in China, where she conducted research analysis on energy economics as a student research assistant, as well as consulted for national government and agencies on energy market design.

Education

Master of Public Policy, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley
Master of Art in Economics, Renmin University of China
Bachelor of Art in Economics, Renmin University of China

Location

New York City, NY