Catherine E. Yap, M.S.

Ms. Yap has been consulting on matters pertaining to energy and regulated utilities for over twenty-five years. She has strong and proven quantitative and qualitative expertise in four utility industries, and is particularly noted for her knowledge of the natural gas industry. Her clients have included governments, utilities, large industrial consumers, natural gas producers, financial institutions, and independent power producers. She has appeared on numerous occasions as an expert witness in regulatory proceedings and in litigation regarding contract disputes.

She has directed and/or performed major quantitative examinations of utility operations, cost-of service requirements, allocation, rate design, and customer bill effects for natural gas, electric, water, and solid waste utilities. She has completed embedded- and marginal-cost studies of electric, natural gas, water, and solid waste utilities. She has addressed complex issues pertaining to the operations and cost treatment for transmission and distribution components of the electric and natural gas utility systems. She has also evaluated utility procurement strategy.

Ms. Yap has been involved in discussions regarding appropriate industry structures for energy utilities during the past several decades. Her earliest involvement took place while she was on the staff of the California Public Utilities Commission where she spearheaded the staff’s natural gas restructuring work. Her more recent work has included her participation in the ongoing debates in rate proceedings about proposed refinements to the structure of the natural gas industry and the restructuring efforts in the electric utility industry, including utility stranded costs, rate unbundling, and direct access implementation. Ms. Yap has comprehensively evaluated the market structure and ratemaking implications of a proposed merger involving two California utilities. She has also evaluated the effect of capacity constraints and market behavior on prices in the context of a major anti-trust litigation.

Prior to this Ms. Yap was employed for nine years by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Most recently, she managed the Energy Rate Design and Economics Branch. This branch was responsible for developing cost of service, rate design, and economic studies, such as sales forecasting and productivity assessment, for both natural gas and electric utilities. Previously, Ms. Yap was the Supervisor of the Gas Supply and Requirements Section. She was responsible for directing, and in some cases performing, advanced technical studies that evaluated natural gas utility operations and associated contracts, investments, and expenses. She also acted as the highest-level technical representative of the CPUC on natural gas matters and was involved in numerous negotiated settlements involving natural gas pipelines, distribution utilities, producers, and state and federal regulatory agencies. Prior to that, Ms. Yap was a staff economist acting as a consultant to the Executive Director and to various Commissioners. She also testified on numerous occasions as an expert witness regarding a variety of technical, economic, and financial matters related to electric and natural gas utilities.

Ms. Yap has a B.A. in chemical physics from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and a M.S. in Energy and Resources from the University of California at Berkeley. She has completed additional coursework in accounting and finance.