1030: Coffee and registration
1100: Plenary: Roaring ahead or left behind –
Renewables in the 2020s?
Chair – Melanie Onn, Deputy Chief Executive, RenewableUK
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Lee Waters MS: Deputy Minister for Climate ChangeLee Waters is the Member of the Senedd for the Llanelli constituency. His policy interests are wide-ranging, including the economy, climate change, provision for looked after children, digital policy and the media. Before being elected in May 2016, Lee was Director of Wales’s leading independent think-tank, the Institute of Welsh Affairs. He previously ran the sustainable transport charity Sustrans Cymru where he led the campaign for the Active Travel Act. He is a former Chief Political Correspondent of ITV Wales and BBC Wales producer. On 13 December 2018 he was appointed Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport. Lee was appointed Deputy Minister for Climate Change on 13 May 2021 |
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Dr Christina DemskiCentre for Climate Change & Social Transformations, Cardiff University Dr Demski is the Deputy Director of the ESRC-funded Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST). She leads on exploring visions of desirable and feasible low-carbon futures. |
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Tom GloverRWE UK Country Chair As RWE’s UK Country Chair, and Chair of the RWE UK Renewables Boards, Tom is the most senior representative of RWE in the UK responsible for representing the company at the national level (UK, Wales and Scotland) and managing senior stakeholder engagement. Tom’s earlier roles as Executive Board member in each of RWE’s main operating companies provides him with the ability and insight to ensure that the company has a co-ordinated strategy and that RWE’s UK portfolio is well-positioned for net zero. Tom has worked at RWE since 2003 and held a variety of senior commercial, trading and business development positions including Chief Commercial Officer of RWE Renewables, RWE Generation and RWE Supply & Trading. In his most recent role, Tom had responsibility for the commercial management and optimisation of RWE’s 10GW global renewable portfolio together with having responsibility for all power purchase agreements, M&A transactions, partnerships and the development of new markets. Prior to that, Tom was commercially responsible for RWE’s European and conventional generation fleet, a 40GW portfolio of coal, biomass, gas, hydro, nuclear and other conventional power stations which produced around 200TWh per annum. Prior to RWE, Tom worked at Barclays Capital, Enron and PricewaterhouseCoopers. |
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Helen WestheadAssociate, Arup Helen is Arup’s environmental consulting team leader across Wales and the west UK region and manages the delivery of projects, policy and strategy to drive decarbonisation in response to the climate emergency. As well as leading a portfolio of renewable energy advisory services, she supports public and private-sector clients in planning for transport decarbonisation, including roll out of electric vehicles. She provides expertise on creating alignment between the energy and transport sectors to facilitate transition to net zero, while planning for a resilient and decarbonised grid. Her passion is promoting collaboration by bringing together multi-disciplinary teams and industry stakeholders in response to the scale and urgency of need to deliver decarbonised solutions for social and environmental gains. |
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1240: Networking lunch
Lunch
Sponsored by BlueFloat & Falck Renewables
1340: Energy infrastructure for net zero
Sponsored by LUC
Chair – Ben Lewis, Barton Willmore
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Maeve FrydayLUC Maeve is Director of Environmental Planning at LUC and has over 25 years of consultancy experience as an EIA and environmental planning and permitting specialist. She has extensive experience in working with developer clients in a range of sectors (energy, infrastructure, residential, commercial, industrial and minerals) across all stages of the development cycle, from feasibility and statutory plan representations to discharge of planning consent conditions and construction oversight. Maeve’s expertise extends to environmental permitting and she has extensive environmental due diligence experience, in recent years focused on due diligence for renewable energy developments. |
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Ella MoseleyLUC Ella Moseley is Associate Director of Ecology at LUC. She is an experienced ecologist with a broad, multidisciplinary background in sectors such as renewables, including offshore wind, transport, port development and housing. She has undertaken ecological assessments and surveys for large-scale infrastructure projects through to small-medium scale schemes, habitat creation and rewilding projects. She has experience in implementing Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) on a range of major infrastructure projects, including the provision of reporting, design and communications through the Statement of Common Ground and Examination process for Development Consent Order. |
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Frankie WhitakerITPEnergised Frankie is an engineer in the Technology Team at ITPEnergised and is currently the electrical package manager for two offshore floating wind farms in the Celtic Sea. Frankie recently led ITPEnergised’s work in advising the Welsh Government, through the ORE Catapult, on the potential for connecting future offshore wind projects to the Welsh transmission system and the potential reinforcement work required. His work focusses on design and analysis of grid solutions for renewable energy projects, with particular focus on the development of new MW to GW scale offshore wind projects around the UK, performing grid analysis, onshore routing assessments and developing offshore transmission system options, costing and Use of System charging. He has worked on projects involving HVDC links, offshore and onshore wind, battery storage and solar generation. |
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Professor Jianzhong WuProfessor of Multi-Vector Energy Systems and Head of Dept or Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Cardiff University He joined Cardiff University in June 2008 (Lecturer 2008; Senior Lecturer 2013; Reader 2014; Professor 2015). From 2006 to 2008, he was a Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. Prof. Wu researches on Smart Grid and Multi-Vector Energy Systems (integrated energy infrastructure). He has contributed to more than 50 EU, EPSRC and industry funded projects as a Principal Investigator or a Co-Investigator. He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed papers, including 5 ESI Highly Cited Papers(@Mar 2021). He is a co-author of books “Smart Grid: Technology and Applications” (2012, Wiley), “Smart Electricity Distribution Networks” (2017, CRC) and “The Future of Gas Networks” (2019, Springer). His professional involvements include: President of the UK Branch of China Electrotechnical Society; Co-Chair of the 9th International Conference on Applied Energy (2017); member of the Organizing Committees of International Conference on Applied Energy (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016); Vice-Chair of the Organizing Committee of 2012 IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies (ISGT Asia); and member of the Organizing Committee of 2010 45th International Universities’ Power Engineering Conference (UPEC). He is an Associate Editor of Applied Energy (Impact Factor: 8.848), Deputy Editor-in-Chief of IET Energy Systems Integration, and Director of International UNiLAB on Synergies between Energy Networks. He is a Fellow of Energy Institute and Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. |
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Martin CaveChair of Ofgem Martin Cave was appointed in October 2018 for a term of five years as Chair of the UK Gas & Electricity Markets Authority (GEMA). Martin Cave has worked in government and academia as an economist specialising in competition law and the regulation of network industries. From 2012 to 2018 he was a panel deputy chair at the Competition and Markets Authority or its predecessor, chairing market investigations, merger inquiries and regulatory appeals. He carried out five independent regulatory reviews for the UK Government and has advised many regulators in the UK and internationally. He has held chairs at various UK universities, including Warwick and the London School of Economics, and is the author of several books and articles on regulation. |
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1510: Coffee
1530: Visualising Wales’ success
Chair – Helen Thomas, RWE
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Sarah MerrickCEO and Founder of Ripple Energy Sarah set up Ripple to bring clean energy ownership into the mainstream. She was frustrated that big companies could access low cost clean energy direct, but people couldn’t. She has worked in the wind energy industry for 18 years. Prior to setting up Ripple she was Head of Public Affairs for Vestas, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer. Alongside her day job she was also vice-chair of RenewableUK. |
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Steve EdwardsCommercial Director, Port of Milford Haven Steve joined the Port of Milford Haven in 2020 following 28 years in the gas industry. In his role as Director of Regulation and Commercial at Wales & West Utilities, he played a major part in helping the organisation develop its own future energy strategy and become a top performing business. Steve was the Chair of the Energy Networks Association Regulation Group and has strong links with regulators, CBI Wales and Welsh Government. Steve is on the Executive Council of the Parliamentary Group for Energy Studies and a Board Member of Warm Wales. |
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David JonesStakeholder Director, Simply Blue Energy, Stakeholder Manager, Blue Gem Wind David is focused on stakeholder engagement for the Blue Gem Wind portfolio of floating wind projects in the Celtic Sea. This involves working with all interested parties, from supply chain companies, ports, government, and coastal communities. Before joining Simply Blue Energy, David was the CEO of Pembrokeshire Coastal Forum, a multi-award-winning company, voted the “most sustainable social enterprise” in Wales. He has worked specifically on marine energy for over 12 years, developing Marine Energy Wales from inception to a collaboration viewed as global best practice. He has also worked directly for Government Ministers and shaped supportive marine energy policy in Wales. |
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James DaviesCEO, Industry Wales Born on the Gower and graduating from Swansea University (Mech Eng), he worked for 32 years at CalsonicKansei (a Tier 1 Automotive supplier) in UK, Europe and Japan, leading their Thermal Management Division ($2.5bn). In April 2017, he became CEO of Industry Wales, to bring voice of Technology, Engineering and Manufacturing industry to Welsh Government and UK Stakeholders including responsibility for three Industry sector forums – Electronics/Software (Technology Connected), Automotive (WAF) and Aerospace (AWF). A Member of the HEFCW Council, he sits on Regional based strategy Groups such as the Swansea Bay City Deal and CCR Skills Partnership. He has recently completed terms on the Ministerial Advisory Board (MAB) for Economy & Transport in Wales, Valleys Taskforce and the Burns Commission to progress the South East Wales Traffic concern. Recently joined as Board Member of Respiratory Innovation Wales to support business and industry engagement in Health Innovation. |
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1700: Post Conference Reception
