Sanjay Ranchod is the chief counsel for the California Energy Commission (CEC). The Chief Counsel's Office is a full-service legal office that advises the CEC on a range of issues. It helps to support the agency in its efforts to lead the state to a 100 percent clean energy future for all.
Ranchod has more than a decade of experience in legal and policy leadership roles at clean energy companies, including SolarCity, Tesla, and OhmConnect. He joined the CEC from Renew Home, where he was the chief legal officer. He previously represented large-scale renewable energy project developers and other businesses as an attorney at the Paul Hastings law firm. Ranchod began his legal career working on complex litigation matters and served as a law clerk to Jeremy Fogel when he was a U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of California.
Ranchod was appointed by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. to the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, where he served as a commissioner for seven years. He has also served on a federal advisory committee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Environmental Health and on the boards of several nonprofit organizations.
Ranchod earned a juris doctor degree from Stanford Law School and graduated magna cum laude from Brown University. After college, he was a California Senate Fellow for the Office of State Senator Byron Sher, where he first worked on California energy law and policy.