Biography:

Santos J. Díaz-Pastor is a Ph.D. candidate in Power Systems at Comillas Pontifical University and a Research Affiliate at the MIT Energy Initiative. He conducts his doctoral research at the Institute for Research in Technology (IIT), within the Energy Systems Modeling and Policy Analysis (EMPA) area, under the supervision of Prof. Ignacio J. Pérez-Arriaga. He holds a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, including an Erasmus exchange at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and dual M.Sc. degrees in Industrial Engineering and the Electric Power Industry from Comillas Pontifical University.

His research focuses on bridging the gap between least-cost electrification planning and implementation at scale. He develops regulatory and financial frameworks that integrate technical planning with tariff design, subsidies and revenue-settlement mechanisms, service obligations, risk allocation, delivery models, and capital structures. His work examines how to translate electrification plans into implementation schemes that are bankable for delivery agents, affordable for users, and fiscally sustainable for the public institutions supporting them.

Santos has worked with governments, international organizations, and development partners, including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), GIZ, Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), and the Rockefeller Foundation. He is also an External Expert Associate at the African School of Regulation (ASR), where he teaches power-sector regulation and contributes to country-level engagements.

From 2022 to 2026, Santos was an Investment Associate at Impact Bridge, a Spanish impact investment manager, where he worked on private-debt and quasi-equity investments across renewable energy, clean mobility, and social infrastructure. His responsibilities covered the full investment cycle, from origination and due diligence to structuring, execution, and portfolio management. This experience brings a practical investment perspective to his research on bankability, risk allocation, and financing structures. Before joining IIT, he worked at Red Eléctrica de España, the Spanish transmission system operator, managing generation and demand data and supporting the integration of asset transactions into electricity market operations.