Germany-based renewable energy company RWE Renewables has appointed Katie Theoharides as Head of Offshore Development (East) in its offshore wind team in the U.S.
Theoharides comes to RWE from her position as Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
"A cabinet secretary to Governor Charlie Baker, she was responsible for more than 3,000 staff, a budget of $300 million and six energy and environmental agencies – one of the largest and most diverse portfolios in the country," RWE said.
"While Secretary, Katie pushed forward several major climate initiatives and infrastructure projects, including deployment of the nation's first-large scale offshore wind farm and the development and selection of its second and third round of procurements that will bring 3,600 megawatts of clean, affordable power to the Massachusetts grid –- enough energy to power an estimated 608,000 homes. She also established an aggressive limit of net zero emissions by 2050 and oversaw more than $1 billion dollars in climate mitigation and adaptation investments," RWE added.
"Katie has been a visionary for Massachusetts whilst driving the state's clean energy ambitions and will further RWE's Growing Green strategy to rapidly invest €50 billion euros in clean energy technologies," said Sam Eaton, Executive Vice President Offshore Wind Development, RWE Renewables Americas. "We are excited to welcome Katie to our team and look forward to working with her to develop clean, affordable and domestic offshore wind energy for millions of American households."
Floating wind
In her role as Head of Offshore Development (East), Katie will be responsible for overseeing all development activities along the East Coast. Her portfolio will include the development of RWE's research array in Maine which is the first offshore floating wind project in the U.S. and development of the largest lease area in the New York Bight that will generate over 3 GW of capacity and power 1.1 million homes in collaboration with our partners at Diamond Offshore Wind and National Grid Ventures respectively.
"I'm thrilled to be joining the RWE team to help accelerate the pace of offshore wind deployment in the U.S., and to create clean, renewable energy that will help us achieve our urgent climate goals," said Katie Theoharides. "I look forward to work directly on project development to help achieve RWE's significant environmental and climate goals which include leading the energy transition by expanding their clean energy generation capacity to 50GW by 2030."