At Sustainable Energy Advantage, LLC (a Framingham, MA-based consulting advisory firm focused on renewable energy markets and policy) Jim Kennerly is the lead analyst for the firm's Solar practice (including its multi-client Massachusetts Solar Market Study) and business line lead for SEA’s New England Eyes and EarsSM regulatory and legislative tracking service. In these roles, Jim advises a diverse array of clients, which include project developers, investors, financial institutions, utilities, utility regulators, state energy departments and non-profits. Jim recently served as the lead analyst and co-author of the independent consultant analysis commissioned by the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) and used to develop the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART) program, the recently-announced successor to the SREC-II program.

Prior to working at SEA, Jim served as the senior analyst for the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE) project, and as a U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative-funded researcher specializing in the impact of rate design and distributed energy resource regulation and policy on the cost of solar PV at the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center at NC State University. Jim’s SunShot-funded research has been featured and cited by a wide variety of national, local and trade media outlets, national laboratories, non-governmental organizations, the Clean Energy Ministerial, and in the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners' (NARUC) Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Compensation Manual.

Prior to working at the Center, Jim worked at the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association and at ICF International, where he served as a consultant to the U.S. EPA's ENERGY STAR program. Jim received a Master of Public Affairs degree from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and a Bachelor’s degree in Politics from Oberlin College.