Dr. Sharp has three decades of experience as a meteorologist, including over 20 years in the energy sector. As a subject matter expert and thought leader at the nexus of weather and climate with electric utility operations he believes that it is critical to understand and mitigate the challenges that are emerging as system weather dependency increases in both size and complexity as a consequence of the energy transition. He is passionate about transdisciplinary cooperation and education that brings together the right people to ensure we have the skills, tools, and data needed to ensure grid reliability, sustainability, and affordability going forward. To this end, he has taken leadership roles in several efforts, including as task force lead, and primary author in a recent Energy System Integration Group effort to document the weather data needs for power system planning and current gaps and limitations, and as a founding member of the Reanalysis Working Group that is hosted by the World Energy Meteorology Council.

Justin founded the operational meteorology division at Avangrid (formally PPM Energy and then Iberdrola) where tasks included reconciling commercial and operational data with meteorological data and providing real time trading and operations support from the first US 24/7 renewable energy forecasting desk. Subsequently, in his consultancy, Sharply Focused, and more recently at EPRI, he has positioned himself as a bridge between atmospheric science and the electric utility sector and is one of a small group of people with the depth of knowledge required to effectively translate between the two. His dissertation explores the meteorology of the Columbia Gorge, home to tens of GW of wind, solar and hydro capacity.