AEC2016

Patrick Finch

Lead Associate

Booz Allen Hamilton




Patrick Finch, a Lead Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, is a management consultant with over 12 years of experience in the renewable energy, energy efficiency, and financial analysis markets. Throughout this time, he has delivered over 30 engagements on behalf of government, utility and non-governmental organization clients, and is currently engaged as a Technology-to-Market (T2M) advisor for the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E). He has served in this capacity for several ARPA-E programs, including the new “Saving Energy Nationwide in Structures with Occupancy Recognition” (SENSOR) program. In this role, he is responsible for designing commercial milestones for a cohort of ARPA-E awardees, helping them manage towards these targets, and assisting them in developing go-to-market strategies for their emerging technologies. Prior to his current position at Booz Allen, Patrick served as a Director at the Waypoint Building Group, a building efficiency company focused on leveraging the power of building data to deliver energy efficiency savings across the utility and commercial real estate market. In his work for the utility sector, Patrick led the design and deployment of several innovative commercial real estate energy efficiency engagement programs on behalf of Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) Company, SoCal Edison, Eversource and National Grid, amongst others. This work focused on integrating big data analytics into traditional utility marketing platforms. He has a MA in International Trade and Investment Policy from the George Washington University, and is a LEED Accredited Professional.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) is launching a new program focused on dramatically improving the cost and performance of occupancy sensing technology. This program, “Saving Energy Nationwide in Structures with Occupancy Recognition” (SENSOR) aims to dramatically reduce the amount of energy used for heating and cooling residential buildings (by 30%) via user-transparent sensor systems that accurately sense human presence (not merely motion). This program also aims to reduce energy usage in commercial buildings (also by 30%) by enabling ventilation control based on sensor systems that can accurately count the number of humans in a pre-determined zone. If these sensing technologies can be widely deployed with disruptively low price targets and failure rates, a significantly lower usage of energy will result without impact to comfort of the occupants of the space. Additionally, these innovations will enable drastic improvements in the way buildings communicate with and respond to their occupants.

Presentation: ARPA-E SENSOR – Saving Energy through Advanced Presence Detection