Sonia Aggarwal is the Chief Executive Officer of Energy Innovation, where she leads the organization and works closely with partners and policymakers on effective climate and clean energy policies across North America, Asia, and Europe.
Prior to this role, Sonia served as Special Assistant to the President for Climate Policy, Innovation, and Deployment in the Biden administration, where she helped to develop the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and to set the nation’s high-level climate targets including the commitment to cut economy-wide greenhouse gases by 50-52 percent below 2005 levels in 2030. Sonia also co-chaired the Biden administration’s Climate Innovation Working Group and focused federal initiatives to reinvigorate clean energy manufacturing across the country.
Sonia was a founding director of Energy Innovation, building Energy Innovation’s policy research, modeling, and analysis teams over eight years until she was appointed to serve in the Biden administration. Sonia has deep experience in energy modeling, analysis, and policy design in many of the world’s largest-emitting countries and regions. She spearheaded creation of America’s Power Plan, a platform to identify innovative thinking on decarbonization policy solutions for affordable, reliable electric power.
Before Energy Innovation, Sonia managed global research at ClimateWorks Foundation, worked on the McKinsey carbon abatement cost curves, advised the International Energy Agency’s “Accelerating Technology Transitions” project, advised clean energy companies on technology and financial communications, and worked in accident prevention design engineering at a nuclear power plant. In 2019, she received the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Energy Education and Empowerment Award.
Sonia holds a B.S. from Haverford College in astronomy and physics, and an M.S. from Stanford University in engineering, focused on energy.