Speaker Biographies
Professor Jim Skea
Jim Skea has particular research interests in energy, climate change and technological innovation. He has been Research Director of the UK Energy Research Centre, based at Imperial College, since 2004 He previously directed the Policy Studies Institute and the Economic and Social Research Council’s’ Global Environmental Change Programme.
He has operated at the interface between research, policy-making and business throughout his career. He is a founding member of the Committee on Climate Change and a Vice-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III (climate change mitigation). He is also on the Boards of the Stockholm Environment Institute and Renewables East. He was Launch Director for the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership and for several years chaired the Scottish Power Green Energy Trust.
He recently chaired the Technical Advisory Group that developed the British Standards Institution specification for assessing the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of goods and services.
Oliver Tickell
Oliver Tickell is a journalist and campaigner on health and environment issues. He is the architect of the "Kyoto2" initiative.
Recently published Kyoto2, puts forward a strikingly original new solution to the tentative, failed steps of the Kyoto Protocol. Using a system of finite production rights for greenhouse gases, which would be traded by organizations on a global auction, Kyoto2 seeks to succeed where the original agreement failed. Regulated by an independent body, the funds could be poured back into healing the wounds inflicted by climate change. In his combination of idealism with realistic proposals, Oliver Tickell exposes the flaws in current approaches, and envisions a fairer and more effective system.
Lewis Dale
Lewis Dale is the Regulatory Strategy Manager for National Grid's UK and European activities and has a particular interest in efficiently integrating renewables and distributed generation into the electricity system. He is a lead contributor to the development of GB transmission access arrangements and network investment incentives and he is also a work stream leader on a European Wind Integration Study. Lewis holds a PhD in electrical engineering, has 30 years experience in engineering and economic roles within the industry, and is a visiting professor at Imperial College London.
Prof Peter Pearson
Peter Pearson is Professor of Energy & Environmental Studies at Imperial College, where he directs the Centre for Energy Policy & Technology (ICEPT). His research interests lie in long run energy technology and fuel transitions and their policy implications. He headed Surrey University Energy Economics Centre (SEEC) from 1989-94 and in 1993 was an ESRC Global Environmental Change Research Fellow. He was twice Chair of the British Institute of Energy Economics, was a member of the EC’s Advisory Group on Energy for the 6th Framework RTD Programme, and has been an expert adviser/consultant to the World Bank’s Inspection Panel since 2001. He was Specialist Adviser to the 2007-08 House of Commons Select Committee Enquiry into Renewable Electricity Generation, and is Chair of the Carbon Trust Standard’s Advisory Board. He is principal investigator of the NERC-funded TSEC-Biosys bioenergy research consortium and academic leader of an EPSRC/E.ON UK-funded research consortium that is developing and exploring Transition Pathways to a Low Carbon Economy, with a focus on electricity. He gave The Queen's Lecture 2007 at the Technical University of Berlin, following Lord Rees in 2006.
Dr Keith MacLean
Since completing graduate and postgraduate studies in Chemistry at Heriot-Watt and Hamburg Universities, Keith joined Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) in 1994 following a career in Germany and Scotland working in Research & Development and Business Management. At SSE he has worked in a number of areas of the core energy business and was also responsible for starting-up and running its telecoms business from 1997 to 2004.
Since 2004 he has been responsible for policy and public affairs. He also has the company lead in sustainability policy - ensuring that SSE carries out its internal and external activities in a sustainable manner, taking a balanced view on the economic, environmental and social elements of its work.
Outside SSE, he is a member of the Executive of the Micropower Council as well as Director on the Board of the Scottish Renewables Forum (SRF). Keith is also Chairman of the Board at the UK Business Council for Sustainable Energy (UKBCSE). In addition to this trade association activity he is a government advisor on renewable energy policy and was appointed to the Renewables Advisory Board in December 2007.
Nigel Cornwall
Nigel Cornwall has had an independent energy consultancy business since 1994. He has worked over this period on energy trading and transmission issues in the UK and other liberalised energy markets, having previously project managed the establishment of National Grid as a civil servant. Over recent years, his work has focused on NETA market design and implementation. He works with a range of clients in the UK, across all segments of the market. He has been an independent industry-elected member of the BSC Panel that governs the centralised trading arrangements in the electricity market for the past six years. Between 2003 and 2005 he was also an elected member on the governance board that oversees the electricity transmission sector (the CUSC Panel).
Nigel specialises in issues connected with market design and market change, including the role of transmission and system operations in deregulated markets and the associated legal, regulatory, commercial and governance framework. He takes a strong interest in the low carbon agenda and public policy and also competition issues, working with a variety of smaller players and newer entrants both in the gas and electricity markets. He has also worked extensively for the regulator and consumer bodies and has an extensive network of customers and contacts throughout the energy sector.
Besides various technical reports on aspects of energy sector operation, he publishes the authoritative weekly Energy Spectrum and he has developed a bespoke regulatory service that enables smaller participants to out-source regulatory and governance intelligence functions.
Dr Dominic MacLaine
Dr Dominic MacLaine has covered the development of UK government energy policy for sixteen years – writing for the likes of the Financial Times, Utility Week, the New Statesman and Platts. He edited the widely respected industry newsletter Power UK for 12 years.
He initially trained as an electronic engineer and went on to carry out PhD research investigating the costs and benefits of introducing electricity retail competition in England and Wales.
Merlin Hyman
Merlin Hyman joined Regen SW as Chief Executive in December 2008. He is responsible for the overall management of Regen SW, the development of its work programme, relationships with key national and regional partners, and for providing public leadership for sustainable energy in the region.
Merlin was previously director of the Environmental Industries Commission (EIC), where he championed the views of the environmental technology and services industry to the government. He helped lead the debate about to how to ensure that British companies succeed in the rapidly growing worldwide market for low-carbon and resource-efficient products and services. Merlin is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, holds an MSc from Lancaster University in European Environmental Policy, and an Honours Degree from the University of Bristol.
Judith Ward
Judith Ward is an energy policy specialist. Since 2004 she has sat on the board of the Institute for European Environmental Policy, while she also acts as a part-time adviser to the UK Business Council for Sustainable Energy and is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Management Under Regulation at Warwick Business School. Until March 2004, she was Group Head of Public Affairs for National Grid Transco, and prior to that, Head of Government Affairs for National Grid. Her early career was spent, inter alia, in policy roles with the House of Commons Environment Select Committee and the national Electricity Consumers' Council.
Dr Rob Gross
Dr Rob Gross is the head of UKERC’s Technology and Policy assessment group and is an executive committee member of the Centre for Energy Policy and Technology at Imperial College London.
His main research themes focus on innovation systems analysis and innovations policy, where he has focused on the technical and economic assessment of low carbon energy options. This has lead to the economics and implications of increasing returns to adoption and associated path dependent processes; scenarios and energy system modelling related to the evolution of energy supply infrastructures for example the development of low carbon energy systems; integration of renewable energy into electricity networks, economic and technical issues; and methodologies for assessing cost reductions and the future development of emerging technologies.
In 2008 he was a Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords European Union Select Committee investigation into the feasibility of the EU 2020 targets for renewable energy and Contributed to the Committee on Environmental Markets and Economic Performance report (2007) commissioned and chaired by the Secretary of State for the Environment and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Dr Jim Watson
Dr Jim Watson is the Director of Sussex Energy Group in Science and Technology Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex. He is also Deputy Leader of the Tyndall Centre's Climate Change and Energy Programme.
I am also a Lead Expert with the UK government Foresight project on Sustainable Energy Management and the Built Environment, a Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, a Council Member of the British Institute for Energy Economics (BIEE),
He is currently working on UK and international policies to support the development and deployment of sustainable, low carbon energy technologies. This includes work on specific low carbon technologies and more general research and outreach, such as the implications of a revival of nuclear power generation, low carbon growth and technology transfer to developing countries and energy networks and systems.
Simon Roberts
Simon has been helping people, organisations and policy-makers to develop effective responses to the threat of climate change and the misery of cold homes for more than 20 years.
He became CSE’s Chief Executive in 2002 after two previous spells at CSE punctuated by five years running Friends of the Earth’s national energy campaign and senior management roles at the leading European ethical bank, Triodos Bank.
In the past year, Simon has been involved in CSE’s work on:
- improving community engagement with renewable energy planning and development;
- establishing new frameworks for assessing and improving local authority performance on cutting carbon emissions;
- analysing the social distribution of household energy consumption and carbon emissions
- assessing the role of community initiatives in mobilising individuals to tackle climate change, and;
- examining the issues associated with personal carbon trading.
Simon is currently a member of the Government’s Renewables Advisory Board, the DECC English Regions Energy Policy Group, the Advisory Board for the ESRC RESOLVE programme at the University of Surrey, and Ofgem’s Consumer Challenge Group. He is a board director of the SW England sustainable energy agency, Regen SW, and of Triodos Renewables Plc, a renewable energy investment fund. He chairs the board of Energy Advice South West Ltd, a charity-owned joint venture which delivers the Energy Saving Trust advice centre across the South West.
Simon was elected a Fellow of the Energy Institute in 2007.
Dr Joe Szarka
Joseph Szarka is Reader in European Studies, in the Department of European Studies, University of Bath, England. He joined Bath in 1987, having lectured at Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Aston. He has a BA from Liverpool University and a Ph D from Cambridge University. His research interests are in politics and policy studies, specialising in environment, climate and energy policy. His books include The Shaping of Environmental Policy in France (Berghahn, 2002) and Wind Power in Europe: Politics, Business and Society ((Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Prof. Catherine Mitchell
Catherine Mitchell is Professor of Energy Policy at Exeter University, having worked on energy issues since the early 1980s. She has worked previously as an academic in the Centre for Management Under Regulation at the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick (2000-2007); the Energy Group of the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex (1990-2000); and the Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley (1999). Prior to that she was a journalist writing about oil and gas issues (1982-6).
Catherine’s research interest is how to undertake the transition from the current ‘dirty’ energy system to a sustainable energy system, at a rate which is quick enough to make a difference to the planetary imperative of climate change and which maintains energy security. She views this question as a system issue. This requires addressing all the issues which make up a system such as policy (and politics), institutions (including economic regulation), infrastructure, economics, innovation, law and planning. She is interested in what enables, constrains or channels energy system innovation at a local, regional, national and international level. She is also interested in the overlapping spheres of energy (including transport), waste resources and food policy and how energy policy fits within the broader climate change policy.
Dr Jeff Hardy
Dr Jeff Hardy is currently Network manager at the UK Energy Research Centre. UKERCs mission is to be the UK's pre-eminent centre of research, and source of authoritative information and leadership, on sustainable energy systems. Jeff is responsible for managing the National Energy Research Network which aims to connect all UK energy researchers and improve the visibility and transparency of UK energy research to those outside of energy research and those outside of the UK.
Previous to this post, Jeff was Environment and Energy Policy manager at the Royal Society of Chemistry, where he was responsible for science policy in sustainable energy, sustainable water, climate change and green chemical technology. He has also held an academic post at the University of York where he led research into chemicals and fuels from biomass and led numerous outreach projects. In a previous life Jeff was a research scientist at B.N.F. plc Sellafield where he was involved in novel methods to separate actinides.
Jeff obtained his PhD in at the University of York in the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence in 2001.
Tim German
Tim German is the director of Cornwall Sustainable Energy Partnership(CSEP). With a background in initiating and developing partnership working in the arts, heritage, education, and energy sectors, his leadership has expanded CSEP to include more than 70 organizations, including local authorities, health sector groups and primary care trusts, housing associations, businesses, voluntary and community organizations, educational institutions, and the environment and renewable energysectors.
CSEP places energy at the heart of sustainable development,ensuring prioritization of the social, economic, and environmental effects of electricity and heat on local communities and businesses. Under Mr. German’s leadership, CSEP has become a model for energy partnerships in the UK and Europe and has been chosen by the European Commission as a best practice example of sub-regional energy partnerships in Europe. He sits on various national panels including the Parliamentary WarmHomes Group, the FPAG/Local Authority Forum, and the Sustainable Energy Partnership that meets in Parliament. He served as a member of the Defra Local Authority Energy Efficiency Steering Group , and is a sustainability champion on three local strategic partnerships including theCornwall-wide Partnership. He is a board member/trustee of Truro Three Arts, the Cornwall Sustainable Buildings Trust and a member of Cornwall College Council and has been chairman of Governors at a local primary school.
Dr Adam Hawkes
Dr Adam Hawkes comes from a background in engineering and software development. He has previous experience with energy trading companies and government policy development. For the last 6 years he has been based at Imperial College London developing a research programme in the area of decentralised energy systems and he is also a research fellow at Grantham Institute. He is currently researching aspects of the residential sector energy system, and whole-system energy modelling within the Electric Futures project at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change.
Jim Footner
Jim Footner is a climate campaigner for Greenpeace UK. He has been closely involved with several energy campaigns, in particular the campaign against the proposed new coal fired power station at Kingsnorth
Dr Bridget Woodman
Bridget Woodman is a lecturer in Environmental Policy and Sustainability at the University of Exeter. She is particularly interested in what policy and regulatory measures may encourage or inhibit the emergence of sustainable energy systems.
Jenny Bird
Jenny Bird is a research fellow of the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR). Prior to joining IPPR, she studied for a Masters in Sustainable Development with Forum for the Future. She has also worked for the Environment Agency and for an international NGO focusing on environmental health issues in rural areas of Nepal.
She specialises in UK climate change policy, UK climate change policy, Personal carbon trading and Road pricing and congestion charging.
Prof Fred Steward
Fred Steward is Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Brunel University. Following his doctoral research in science and technology studies at the University of Manchester he joined the Manchester Business School to conduct research on risk regulation and technological innovation. He then moved to the Technology Policy Unit at Aston University where he was appointed Lecturer and researched innovation & consumer risk in the pharmaceutical and food sectors. Subsequently he joined Aston Business School where he established & directed the Innovation Research Centre and became Reader in the Strategic Management group.
Since joining Brunel in October 2002, he has concentrated on developing a research programme on Innovation, Risk & Environmental Sustainability with a focus on network theories of innovation and sustainable technology transitions. He is currently exploring the prospects for transitions to sustainable technologies and uses innovation network analysis.
Phil Baker
Philip retired from the position of Technical Director, Electrical Technology, with the Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform in March 2008, where he was concerned with all aspects of the integration of renewable generation into the electricity networks. Before moving to BERR/DTI, Philip had a long career in the electricity supply industry, holding numerous managerial and technical positions with National Grid and its predecessor the CEGB. Philip is a Chartered Electrical Engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology.
While with DTI/BERR, Philip was instrumental in establishing a number of industry-wide working groups, such as the Embedded Generation working Group and the Electricity Networks Strategy Group, tasked with addressing technical and regulatory barriers to the connection of small and renewable generation to the electricity networks.
Philip is currently a research follow with the UKERC, investigating the impact of economic regulation and market arrangements on the development of a sustainable electricity network.
Guy Hitchcock
Guy Hitchcock has over 15 years’ experience working on the energy and environmental issues surrounding transport. He has considerable expertise in policy and strategy work, and the evaluation and monitoring of new transport schemes and technologies. He has worked extensively for UK Government, local authorities and the European Commission. Guy’s key skills include: Policy development relating to air quality, energy use and climate change; Technical advice on vehicle emissions, alternative fuels and new vehicle technologies; ‘Green’ fleet management and business travel issues.
Dr Chris Jardine
Dr Chris Jardine is a research analyst in the Lower Carbon Futures team in the Environmenta Change Institute at the University of Oxford. Primarily, his focus is on renewables, especially the use of solar photovoltaics within the household and on commercial buildings. Chris is currently examining how massive numbers of small-scale renewables and microgeneration can be incorporated into the electricity grid as part of the SUPERGEN consortium on Highly Distributed Power Systems. The ECI's work on this consortium project involves scenario creation, electricity network modelling and policy requirements to support the development of a highly distributed power system.
Tim Rotheray
Dr Tim Rotheray joined the Micropower Council in 2008 after working for the Members Research Service at the National Assembly for Wales. Tim leads on zero carbon homes and buildings and retrofit policy as well as engagement with the devolved administrations. Tim has recently authored two Micropower Council policy reports which set out how the Government should take forward policy in these areas. Actively engaged with Government at national and devolved level, Tim sits on the Zero Carbon Hub Energy Supply workstream and Scottish Renewable Heat Group and has been invited to join the Welsh Zero Carbon Hub following his tenure on the Welsh Assembly Government’s Sustainable Buildings Technical Advice Group.
Dr Clare Haggett
Dr Claire Haggett is Lecturer in Human Geography in the Centre for the study of Environmental Change at the University of Edinburgh. She is a sociologist by training, formerly of Research and Statistics Directorate at the Home Office in London, of Surrey University (Sociology), and Newcastle University (Town Planning). Her research focuses on understanding the relationships between people and the environment - how people respond to environmental information, issues, and problems, and how these shape behaviour and practices. In particular, this is a focus on energy issues, including understanding opposition to renewable energy, and the wider implications of its implementation on people, communities, and landscapes.
Dr Peter Connor
Dr Peter Connor is a Senior lecturer in renewable Energy policy at Camborne School of Mines, Cornwall.
He is currently pursuing research in the area of policy and regulation relating to the adoption and use of renewable energy sources of heat (RES-H). Also pursuing further work in the area of industrial policy relating to renewable energy technologies and is particularly interested in how national and regional policies have impacted on the development of wind turbines and corresponding manufacturing sectors.
Mark Yeoman
Deputy Director, Convergence Partnership Office for Cornwall and Isles of Scilly
Mark Yeoman is the Deputy Director of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Convergence Partnership Office. The Partnership Office undertakes the communications and public relations for the 2007 to 2013 European Convergence Programmes for Cornwall and the isles of Scilly, telling the story – the what, the why and the impact of the Programmes’ investment. This includes highlighting the complementary nature of the investment of the two Programmes.
Mark was involved in the development, drafting and negotiation of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly ERDF Convergence Operational Programme.
As both Environment Manager and Deputy Director in the Objective One Partnership Office Mark championed the environment as an economic driver and the use of the environment as a cross cutting theme in EU structural funds. Mark’s experience and knowledge on this subject has been acknowledged by the European Commission and UK Government.
He is a graduate ecologist and chartered Town Planner whose professional career has included substantial local authority experience in strategic land use planning, environmental appraisal, and rural economic regeneration as well as working for an environmental non governmental organisation and the Inland Revenue, London.
Karla Hill
Karla Hill works for ClientEarth, an activist lawyers company, where she leads work on climate change and energy law, regulation and policy in the London office. She works with public interest and non-governmental environmental organisations as well as policy-makers at the interface of energy and environment regulation under UK and EU law.
Prior to joining ClientEarth, she held roles in the climate and energy team of the Sustainable Development Commission, the UK Government's independent sustainability advisor, and with the UK Government. She also practised environment, planning and public law in New Zealand where she was a senior solicitor.
Malcolm Keay
Malcolm Keay is a senior reseach fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. He joined the Institute in January 2005 and focuses his research on electricity markets, the policy and regulatory issues affecting electricity and energy markets and the impacts on inter-fuel competition, energy security and the environment. He has wide-ranging experience in energy policy, regulation, research and consultancy at senior level.
Dr Miles Tight
Dr Miles Tight is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds. His key research interests are the sustainability of transport systems, transport policy and planning for transport in urban areas, the environmental impacts of transport, transport futures and children’s road safety.
Ian Smith
Ian is the Managing Director of Community Energy Plus (CEP), a sustainable energy charity established in Cornwall in 1997. Ian has 12 years experience of progressing energy efficiency and renewable energy issues in the south west. He has been a key figure steering the development of initiatives like the award-winning Home Health™ programme, a unique community renewable outreach service, pioneering energy related Local Area Agreements, the regional Sustainable Energy Network, the Convergence/ESF renewable energy and environmental technology task and finish group and the South West Low Carbon Housing and Fuel Poverty Strategy and Action Plan. He is the Outcome Lead for Cornwall’s C02 reduction and fuel poverty mainstreaming LAA targets and is Vice Chair of Environment Kernow. He is a Director of Energy Advice South West, a member of the CSEP Energy in Buildings Group, The Energy Institute and a Graduate of Common Purpose.
Graham Meeks
Graham Meeks has been the Director of the Combined Heat and Power Association since August 2007. He previously worked in the advisory team of specialist investment bank Climate Change Capital and as Head of Fuels and Heat at the Renewable Energy Association. He was Head of Policy for the CHPA between 2000 and 2003, as a consultant with AEA and in energy management with AHS Emstar (now Dalkia). Graham is an engineer by background and in his early career served in the Royal Engineers. He has a BEng from Leeds University and an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College.
Sarah Darby
Sarah has a first degree in Ecological Science from Edinburgh University. She joined the Environmental Chance Institute (ECI) in 1995 and gained her doctorate there, looking at social, behavioral and educational aspects of energy use. Her main research interests have centered on how people learn about energy and the environment and apply what they have learned, whatever their level of knowledge and specialization: designers, householders, business people, policymakers, construction workers or technologists. She was awarded a three-year interdisciplinary fellowship by the Economic and Social Research Council, running from April 2007, to carry our research into domestic energy feedback. During that time she is also part of the external evaluation team for the UK Demand Reduction Pilot (trials of various forms of feedback and smart metering). Her main focus is on what householders are able to learn from developments in energy metering, billing and displays and how effective these developments may be in reducing and managing demand. New forms of metering and monitoring open up possibilities for learning, while micro-generation technologies mean that people who have in the past been energy 'consumers' are able to become producers as well - a shift that is beginning to alter the way in which they think and act. She is also studying the impact of new metering and feedback technologies on options for energy supply industries, and on the relationships between suppliers and their customers.
