Smart Energy Networks Europe

Philip Lowe

Director General, DG ENER, European Commission

Biography

Philip Lowe was born in Leeds in 1947. He read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at St John's College, Oxford and has an M. Sc. from London Business School. Following a period in the manufacturing industry, he joined the European Commission in 1973, and held a range of senior posts as Chef de Cabinet and Director in the fields of regional development, agriculture, transport and administration, before becoming Director-General of the Development DG in 1997. From September 2002 he was Director-General of the Competition DG until he took up his current appointment as Director-General of the Energy DG in February 2010.

Martin Fuchs

Chairman, transpower stromübertragungs, Vice Chairman, Tennet

Biography

Education: 1975 – 1980

Technical University - Munich
First Class Honours Degree in electrical engineering/energy economics

Present Position:

• since 10/2010- Chief Executive Officer, TenneT TSO GmbH
• since 3/2010- Vice Chairman, TenneT Holding B.V.

Professional Experience:

• 1980 – 2000- Diverse activities in different divisions, Bayernwerk AG
• 08/2000 – 04/2009- Chief Executive Officer, E.ON Netz GmbH
• 05/2009 – 09/2010- Chief Executive Officer, transpower stromübertragungs gmbh

Miscellaneous:

• Until 03/2002 German member of the ETSO-Steering Committee
  (European Transmission System Operators)
• 2002 - 2005 President of UCTE, (Union for the Co-ordination of the Transmission of Electricity)
• Since 12/2008 Member of the Board of Directors of ENTSO-E
  (European Network of Transmission System Operatorsfor Electricity)

Pierre-Alain Graf

Chief Executive Officer, Swissgrid

Biography

Career

• Since 2009 CEO swissgrid ag
• 2006 – 2008 General Manager, Cisco Systems Switzerland
• 2004 – 2006 European Head of SME and Indirect Business, Colt Telecom
• 2000 – 2004 Managing Director Nordic, Colt Telecom
• 1997 – 2000 Corporate Development Director, Colt Telecom
• 1992 – 1997 Management positions, Credit Suisse

Personal information

Pierre-Alain H. Graf is 48 years old. He has a degree in Law from the University of Basel and a second degree in Business Administration from the University of St. Gallen. He completed a financial training course at the International Banking School in New York. Between 1992 and 1997 he held various management positions in IT at Credit Suisse. He then set up several national subsidiaries for Colt Telecom and worked abroad for a number of years. In 2006 he moved to Cisco Systems Switzerland, where he was General Manager until 2008. At the end of 2008 he took up his current position as CEO of Swissgrid and since February 2009 he has been responsible for taking the national grid company into the next phase of electricity market liberaliation.

Per Hallberg

Senior Advisor, Vattenfall, Chair, Smart Grids Working Group, Eurelectric

Biography

Education:

• 1965: High shool Motala Sweden
• 1967: ICT-degree University of Linköping Sweden
• 1968: Military services
• 1972: Masters degree in economics Uppsala University Sweden

Professionals:

• 1972 and on: Vattenfall
• 1972-1995: Various positions within Vattenfall; nuclear, market departments
• 1995-2000: Head of M&A Vattenfall Nordic Distribution. Expansion to Poland,Germany and the Baltic States. Chairman of several Vattenfall subsidiaries in Sweden, Finland and Norway
• 2000-2005: CEO Vattenfall Distribution Sweden
• 2005- : Senior advisor Vattenfall European Affairs Brussels

In parallel: Chairman Eurelectric WG Smart Grids

Stig Goethe

President, Power Circle and Chairman, IA ENARD

Biography

Stig Goethe is presently the Chairman of IEA´s Implementing agreement ENARD, of the Swedish Wind Power Research Institute and the Power Circle of Sweden.

Stig G is an electrical engineer from the Royal Technical University in Stockholm and has also studied economy at Stockholm University. He has a long career in the Power business and spent 37 years in different positions in Vattenfall before his formal retirement early this century. He has worked with all parts of the electricity value chain from Production, over Distribution and Sales, to cooperate functions like Research and strategic planning. During his last 10 years with Vattenfall he served as vice president of the company.

After retirement Stig G has advised companies and governments about electricity policy and strategy matters mainly in East Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He also served as Board member in a couple of electricity companies.

Aurelio Blanquet

Director for Automation and Telecontrol, EDP Distribuição

Biography

Aurélio Blanquet is graduated in Electronics Engineering and MBA in business administration.

Since 2007, he is Director for Automation and Telecontrol in the Portuguese DSO EDP Distribuição.

Mr. Blanquet is also Project Leader for the InovGrid Project, a smartgrid's innovation initiative pursuing the upgrade of the Distribution Network to face the new needs and challenges of the electricity market, and member of the Corporate Steering Committee for the IT Systems Architecture.

Previously he was Associate Director of Network Operations at EDP Distribuição. Between 1999 and 2007 we was Director at ONI Telecom, a Portuguese telecommunications operator, head of Business Development Projects and responsible for the e-commerce B2C business unit.

Until 1999, he was Head of Department for Telecontrol and Telecommunications at EDP, and project manager of several R&D Projects covering areas like SCADA/DSM Systems, Substation Automation, Distribution Automation, intelligent sensors and digital powerline telecommunications.

He is author of more than 12 papers, related with Dispatching and Control Systems Strategies, Development of Substation and Distribution Automation Systems, and Telecommunications, presented in international conferences and summits (UNIPEDE, CIRED and EURELECTRIC, among others).

Oliver Giese

Vice President Market Regulation, Economic and Public Affairs, E.ON

Biography

The VP Market Regulation within E.ON is responsible for forming a group wide, consistent and balanced position on European regulatory issues, advising the E.ON Board on major regulatory issues and strengthening E.ON's regulatory community with a continuous information exchange and mutual support. Furtheron the team gives a direct support to E.ON's market units on specific regulatory topics based on cross market knowledge along the value chain.

Mr. Giese is a dedicated energy professional with a 16-year track record of managing campanies and projects in the German and European energy industry. Profound knowledge of European energy market regulation as well as capacity and commodity markets.. He is a Graduate Engineer and has an MBA.

Nikos Hatziargyriou

Project Coordinator, MERGE, Deputy CEO, Public Power Corporation

Biography

Professor Nikos Hatziargyriou is deputy CEO of PPC, responsible for Transmission and Distribution Networks, island DNO and the Center of Testing, Research and Prototyping. e He From 1984 he is with the Power Division of the School of Electrical Engineering of NTUA, where he is full professor, since 1995. He is member of CIGRE, Convener of SCC6, Fellow Member of IEEE, Chair of the Power System Dynamic Performance Committee, member of the BoD of EURELECTRIC and was member of the EU Advisory Council of the Technology Platform on SmartGrids. He has participated in more than 60 R&DD Projects, in many as scientific coordinator, he is author of two books and more than 250 scientific publications.  

Francesco Amadei

Head of Regulatory Affairs & Antitrust Compliance, Enel Distribuzione

Biography

Francesco Amadei (Roma, 1963) after graduating in Electrical Engineering, at the University of Rome and serving in Army, joined Enel in 1988.

From 1988 to 1991 he worked in Technical Department of Enel Distribuzione.

From 1991 to 2004 he worked in Administration and Control Department, where he was Responsible for Strategic Planning of Enel Distribuzione Spa, for five years.

Since 2004 he is working in Network and Infrastructure Division as Responsible for Operations and Regulatory Affairs.

Manager since 2000, in his career he has been involved, with different roles, in the main projects undertaken by Enel to face the significant changes in energy sector, including Enel IPO, three reorganization of Distribution business, Merger and Acquisition Projects in Italy and abroad, the Automatic Meter Management project and, recently, the implementation in Network and Infrastructure Division of Lean Organization.

Actually he is in charge of Regulatory Affairs and Antitrust Compliance and reports to Enel Distribuzione CEO, Livio Gallo.

Terje Gjengedal

Senior Vice President, Transmission Systems R & D, Statnett

Biography

Dr. Gjengedal received a Master of Science and a doctoral degree in electrical engineering from the Norwegian Institute of Technology in 1983 and 1987, respectively. Since then, he has gained a wide range of experience working within the energy sector—from universities and utility companies to research and development programs. Terje Gjengedal has been working as vice president at Statkraft, Europe's leading renewable energy company, where he has focused on system and market integration of wind power and other renewable sources. He has now joined Statnett, The Norwegian TSO, where he is a SVP and the R&D Director working within a broad range of energy, grid and market issues. His primary fields of interest include transmission system development, operation and control, ancillary services, energy storage, renewable energy and electricity markets. He is also a professor within transmission systems, renewable energy and energy planning.

Reinhard Janssen

Department of Research and Development, EWE AG

Biography

Reinhard Janssen received a Diplom-Ingenieur (FH) degree in communication engineering in 2004 at the University of Applied Sciences in Emden, Germany. In the same year, he started his career in the area of system engineering in the antenna and communication field and was responsible for antenna integration for unmanned air vehicles (UAVs). In 2008 he joined EWE AG, where he has been engaged in R&D on system design of smart metering, smart home and smart appliances concepts.

Martijn Bongaerts

Strategy Consultant, Alliander, Chairman, WG Smart Grids, Netbeheer Nederland

Biography

Martijn is Strategic Policy Advisor and innovation manager at Alliander, the biggest networkcompany in the Netherlands.

He is involved in future developments and innovation in the area of energy. The central position of electricity and gas grids is his focus. Keywords in his work are: innovation, integration of distributed generation, sustainability, energy transition and smart grids.

He connects knowledge about technical, economical, legal and societal issues in the energy value chain. In the decentralization the role and responsibility of local grid companies (DSOs) will change. Martijn develops these new concepts and initiates pilots and project to make them measure. Martijn is involved in a couple of national taskforces and project groups, like the Taskforce Intelligent Grids.

Martijn is chairman of the project group Smart Grids of the Dutch Grid company Association Netbeheer Nederland. This project group develops the vision and the strategy of the joint grid companies on the area of Smart Grids. Recently the project group has presented his Roadmap Smart Grids and they will start and realize projects to facilitate the Dutch Energy Transition pro-actively.

Martijn is Master of Science in Power Electronics (TU Eindhoven) and Master of Business in Energy Systems (TU Delft).

In September 1998 he started his career as trainee at energy company Nuon, directly after finishing his studies with a master thesis at Kema Arnhem.

After his traineeship he became consultant at the business unit Liandon, who is responsible for consultancy and engineering. His focus points were condition based maintenance in electricity and gas grids and the inspection of electricity and gasmeters.

In 2002 he started at the gridcompany Continuon Netbeheer, as senior assetmanager. Technical strategy, standardization and innovation were his keywords.

In 2008 Continuon Netbeheer was transferred in the networkcompany Alliander.

Ger Baron

Project Manager, Amsterdam Innovation Motor

Biography

Ger Baron has worked for the Amsterdam Innovation Motor since 2007. He has initiated and is responsible for several projects around Living Labs and Smart City. Most notably for this event is the Amsterdam Smart City project, www.amsterdamsmartcity.com. Before his career in AIM he has been working for the Dutch Social Democratic party and Accenture Consulting. His interest is on innovation, product and services, and the role of the users in this perspective. Ger considers technology as an important enabling technology, but tends to focus the adaptation of technologies.

Alain Taccoen

Deputy Manager, Regulation & Finance, Reseau de Transport d Electricite

Biography

Alain Taccoen is Deputy Manager of the RTE Regulation and Finance Department. He joined RTE in 2001 where he had several assignments around regulation topics, interconnection access, incentive regulation, benchmarking or transmission tariff. Alain Taccoen is the convenor of the WG Market Information and Transparency of ENTSO-E and the secretary of the CIGRE Study Committee "Electricity Markets and Regulation".

José-Antonio Castro

Electric Energy Department, CNE

Biography

He's member of the technical staff in the department responsible for RES, CHP and offshore systems in the electricity directorate of the Spanish energy regulator, the CNE. He's also involved in a number of ERGEG's (European energy regulators' group) task forces mainly related to cross border trade & transmission, as well as in harmonisation issues related to the development of the Iberian Electricity Market (MIBEL) and the South-West Europe regional initiative.

Prior to joining CNE, he's been senior consultant in energy regulation and risk management for Deloitte; he worked previously for Spanish utility Unión Fenosa and also Siemens AG in Germany.

José-Antonio is an industrial engineer, specialized in Electrotechnics (Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, Madrid, 1999).

Artur Trindade

Director of Costs and Revenues, ERSE

Biography

Artur Trindade holds a MA in Economics from University of Kent at Canterbury (1996) and Degree in Economics from Universidade Católica Portuguesa de Lisboa (1994). He joined ERSE in 2000, coming from ADENE (Portuguese Energy Agency) and has 14 years experience in energy and regulatory economics, including tariff setting, pricing, investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency. His background also includes lecturing in economics at local universities.

Currently is the director of the ERSE's Cost and Revenues department, responsible for designing the forms of economic regulation and setting allowed revenues for electricity and gas operators, this includes the definition of the criteria to accept and remunerate the regulatory asset base and the establishment of efficiency targets.

José Luis Mata

Head of Regulation and Studies Department, Red Electrica de Espana

Biography

José Luis Mata studied Electrical Engineer in ICAI, Comillas University in Madrid. He joined Red Eléctrica in 1989, and during 13 years he worked in the Energy Management System area. In 2002 he became Head of R&D and European Projects, playing an active role in the launching phase of the European Electricity Grid Initiative.

Since January 2009 he is Head of Regulation and Studies of Red Eléctrica. He combines this responsibility with the coordination of FP7 project TWENTIES, and the Chair of FUTURED (Spanish Technological Platform for Grids).

He has experience in IT project management and R&D projects coordination, and has a broad international experience, including projects as consultant for the World Bank.

Gianluigi Migliavacca

Head of Transmission Network Planning Research Group, ERSE, Project Coordinator, REALISEGRID

Biography

Gianluigi Migliavacca graduated in Electronic Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Milan in 1991 and joined the Automation Research Center of ENEL in 1994, working on mathematical modelling and dynamic simulation of thermal power plants. In 2000 he joined CESI and then CESI Ricerca (now: ERSE), where he leads the Transmission Planning research group within the Power Systems Development department. His research activities deal with mathematical modelling and regulatory issues concerning deregulated electricity markets, cross border trade issues and transmission planning. During 2005 he was consultant at the Italian Regulator about the development of a common energy market in South-East Europe and about congestion management in Central-South Europe. Now, he is coordinator of the European FP7 research project REALISEGRID (http://realisegrid.erse-web.it). He is also member of the technical committee TC6.3 "Power Systems and Power Plants" of IFAC (http://tc.ifac-control.org/6/3) and member of the International Scientific Committee of the International Conference on European Electricity Markets (http://www.eem10.com/committee.shtml)

Dr. René Kamphuis

Network & Infrastructure Efficiency Unit, ECN

Biography

René (I.G.) Kamphuis holds a PhD degree from Groningen University (NL) in chemical physics. He joined ECN (Energy research Centre of the Netherlands) in 1983 for the design and implementation of mainframe computer programs for scientific applications. Shifting his focus to distributed applications and real-time systems he was involved in a large number of projects in the energy field since then. He was the project leader for the Dutch government funded SMART project, which has energy saving in SMART buildings using multi-agent technology in an Internet fine-meshed network context as the theme. For the EU Energy 5th framework CRISP project he was coordinator of the second work package in which innovative agent technology is developed for bottom-up demand-supply matching of electricity (www.powermatcher.net). He is appointed as the Dutch country expert in the IEA-DSM program Demand Response Resources. He is involved in the Integral FP6-Energy framework as ICT-expert and has been involved in the rollout of the PowerMatching City fieldtest (http://www.powermatchingcity.nl/UserPortal).

Konstantin Staschus

Secretary General, ENTSO-E

Biography

Konstantin Staschus, is from Berlin, Germany. He received a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Virginia Tech in the USA. After 9 years at Pacific Gas and Electric, USA, he held management positions in German utility associations, including 6 years as Managing Director of VDN, the association of German electricity network operators. He began his mandate as Secretary-General of ENTSO-E, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity in the Brussels office on 1 March, 2009. ENTSO-E is the association of European TSOs – 42 from 34 countries – which unites the technical, planning and market-related work of six prior European TSO associations and has been given important new tasks in the EU's 3rd Energy Package which went into effect 3 Sept. 2009, in particular the development of 10-year pan-European network development plans and of ultimately binding network codes in 12 important areas of technical and market cooperation and network access.

Gert De Block

Secretary General, CEDEC

Biography

Gert De Block (1965) has been working in the energy utilities sector since 1992. First for the Belgian association of municipal energy utilities and since 1996, he is secretary general of CEDEC, European federation of local energy companies.

Gert De Block studied Applied Economic Sciences at the University of Ghent, and earned an MBA in Financial Sciences at the Vlerick Business School.