Eric Blank was appointed Chairman of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission on December 11, 2020, by Governor Jared Polis for a four-year term effective January 12, 2021. His term expires in January of 2025.
Blank, a lawyer and economist from Boulder, has worked on electric utility and clean energy issues for over 35 years in a diverse range of entrepreneurial, business, and non-profit settings.
In 2000, Blank co-founded a pioneering national renewable energy development company, which he ran until three years ago. Blank helped commercialize first wind and then later solar technologies by building some of the earliest and largest clean energy projects outside of California. All told, he has developed 2,000 MW of operating wind and solar projects, representing $4 billion in invested capital.
Blank spent most of the 1990s leading the energy work of a non-profit environmental group, now called Western Resource Advocates. Through PUC interventions in six western states, he helped develop some of the first policies that made utility clean energy investments initially feasible and ultimately cost-effective. Prior to that, Blank was a consultant preparing utility capacity expansion and dispatch modeling studies.
Blank holds a law degree from Yale Law School and a master’s in economics from the London School of Economics.
