Veronica Irastorza

Associate Director, NERA Consulting

Veronica Irastorza is an Associate Director at NERA Economic Consulting. She has 20 years of experience in regulatory and strategic issues concerning energy.  She was Undersecretary of Energy Planning and Transition in Mexico until December 2012.  She was in charge of the long-term planning as well as the renewable energy and energy efficiency policies.  Her planning work included developing the National Energy Strategy and producing the Energy Outlooks.

In electricity, Mrs. Irastorza has advised governments, regulators, energy companies, investors and large users on industry structure, regulation, sector reform, evaluation of assets, market design, tariffs, planning and forecasting in many countries around the world including the Canada, Chile, Ireland, Mexico and the United States.  She has worked on matters related to all aspects of the electric power sector, including generation, transmission, ancillary services, distribution, and retailing.

In natural gas, she has advised companies on the effects of new policies or regulations, as well as on due diligence, mergers & acquisitions. She has also advised governments and regulators on the design of efficient regulations on different aspects of the industry including transportation, distribution and storage as well as planning. Ms. Irastorza was Deputy Director of Planning for Pemex Gas, were she was responsible of the planning and regulatory issues for Mexico`s national gas company.

Before joining Pemex, Ms. Irastorza was Director General of Energy Planning at the Secretary of Energy in Mexico. She was responsible of the first National Energy Strategy with a 15-year outlook.  She also coordinated the energy outlooks (oil, natural gas, LPG, petroleum products and electricity).

Prior to joining NERA, Ms. Irastorza served as an advisor to the Energy Secretary in Mexico, where she was involved in several projects pertaining to the privatization of natural gas transportation, investment incentives in electricity plants, and other public policy issues. She also taught economics to undergraduates at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico. While attending the University of California at Berkeley, she worked for the California Public Utilities Commission, analyzing transmission investment incentives for the restructured electricity industry.