Jurgen R. Weiss

Jurgen R. Weiss

Senior Lecturer of Business Administration

After more than two decades in consulting, Jurgen joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 2020 as a member of the Business, Government, and the International Economy Unit. He currently teaches the first year BGIE core course and is developing an energy focused second year electrive course. He is a Faculty Affiliate of the Business & Environment Initiative as well as a Faculty Fellow at the Harvard Environmental Economics Program. In addition, Jurgen continues to be a Princial at The Brattle Group, an international economic consulting firm.

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His research and consulting work focus on the fundamental transformation of the energy industry in light of rapid technological change and climate change-related pressures. He has published, consulted and testified on specific topics such as the decarbonization/electrification of transportation and buildings, the deep decarbonization of the power sector and the impacts these changes have on assets, (carbon and energy) market design, market structures, long-term planning needs, and business models for companies inside and outside the energy industry.

He previously served on the advisory council for California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard, was an advisor to the King Abdullah City of Atomic and Renewable Energy in Saudi Arabia, and on the Department of Energy's Wind Vision Task Force.

Apart from his consulting career at the Brattle Group, Dr. Weiss was a co-founder and managing director of Watermark Economics, the managing director of Point Carbon's global advisory practice, a director at LECG, and an associate of Booz Allen & Hamilton. Dr. Weiss holds an MBA from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University.

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Heating Sector Transformation in Rhode Island

Pathways to Decarbonization by 2050

In a heating transformation study presented to Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, economists at The Brattle Group examine potential solutions that can transform Rhode Island’s heating sector as part of the state’s commitment to economy-wide decarbonization. While it is not yet clear which specific pathway will best provide decarbonized heat, substantial progress can be made in the next decade to replace the fossil fuels – natural gas, heating oil, and propane – that the state currently uses for heating.

Prepared for the Rhode Island Division of Public Utilities and Carriers and the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources, the study examines the relative economic attractiveness of several solutions for decarbonizing the heating sector. These solutions fall into three broad categories: improving building energy efficiency, replacing current fossil heating fuels with carbon-neutral renewable gas or oil, or replacing existing fossil-fueled boilers and furnaces with electric ground source or air source heat pumps (GSHP, ASHP) powered by carbon-free electricity.

The report finds that cost-effective energy efficiency retrofits will reduce both emissions and costs to consumers, but cannot eliminate the need for heat in hundreds of thousands of existing buildings in the state. Thus, some combination of the decarbonized heat alternatives – electrification with heat pumps or decarbonized fuels – will also need to be adopted in virtually all of Rhode Island’s buildings.

This report analyzes the pace of clean energy additions that would be needed to meet New England's 2050 economy-wide decarbonization targets. It concludes that to meet those targets average annual clean energy additions would likely have to increase 4-8 fold over the pace currently planned for the coming decade. However, it also concludes that a sustained annual growth rate of renewable energy resource additions of less than 10% and below historic growth rates of the relevant industries (onshore wind, offshore wind, solar, batteries) would be sufficient to build out the required clean energy portfolios by 2050.

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