Charles River Associates
Jim McMahon is Energy Practice Leader at Charles River Associates.
Charles River Associates (CRA) has a sixty-year history. It began in 1965, when three graduates from Harvard and MIT – Jerry Kraft, Alan Willens, and John Kaler – met in Boston, Massachusetts to establish a new economics consulting firm. CRA emphasized the application of academics to real-world issues, as they begin to consult on economic problems for federal agencies and private corporations.
Fast forward to 2025, and CRA has grown to a leading global consulting firm that offers economic, financial, and strategic expertise to major law firms, corporations, accounting firms, and governments around the world. That expertise extends to the energy world and CRA has a focus on energy infrastructure, as it provides global strategic, economic, commercial, and regulatory advice on today’s energy ecosystem and the energy transition.
That led Public Utilities Fortnightly Executive Editor Steve Mitnick to the CRA Energy Practice Leader, Jim McMahon. Listen in as he takes on four big issues facing industry leaders today.
PUF’s Steve Mitnick: Talk about the priority issues facing leaders of the industry. How do you stack them up?
Jim McMahon: There are many key issues that we’re tracking involving our utility clients. I’m happy to talk about a few of those. One is around the future of wholesale markets and how they adapt to higher loads and greater renewable penetration.