Speaker Biographies
Peter Atherton,
Managing Director, Citigroup Global Markets
Peter Atherton is a Managing Director and heads Citigroup's European Utility Sector and Climate Change research group. He joined Citigroup in 2000 after four years at Kleinwort Benson. Before that Peter spent eight years working in the utility industry, where he latterly was part of the National Grid's corporate strategy team.
Phil Baker,
Energy Policy Group, University of Exeter
Philip Baker is currently a research fellow with UKERC, investigating the impact of economic regulation and market arrangements on the development of a sustainable electricity network. 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.
Dr Brenda Boardman, MBE, FEI,
Environmental Change Institute, Oxford
Until September 2007, Brenda led the Lower Carbon Futures group at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. In November 2007, she wrote Home Truths: a low-carbon strategy to reduce UK housing emissions by 80% by 2050 for Friends of the Earth and The Co-op Bank. Brenda has, in theory, retired and is now an Emeritus Fellow of the University of Oxford. She published Fixing Fuel Poverty – challenges and solutions with Earthscan in early 2010. The subject of fuel poverty is growing in importance across Europe. Brenda focuses on the built environment from the perspective of the user and the building provider, rather than the utility.
Jonathan Brearley,
Director of Energy Strategy & Futures, DECC
Jonathan Brearley is currently the Director of Energy Strategy and Futures for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
Before this role, he used to be the DECC Strategy Director and also Director of the UK Office of Climate Change (OCC).
This role was a combination of private work for DECC and cross cutting work reporting to six UK Ministers. Broadly, Jonathan's team had three functions:
- To coordinate and set out the strategy for DECC
- To run strategy projects focussed on cross cutting climate change issues and policy
- To support and co-ordinate delivery of wider climate change work across government
Within the UK government, Jonathan previously worked for four years at the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit, working on policy projects ranging from local government to prisons and probation. More recently he worked at (what was) the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, developing the Local Government White Paper.
Prior to coming into government, Jonathan worked as a strategy consultant and has an academic background in maths, physics and economics.
Sarah Darby,
Lower Carbon Futures Programme, ECI, Oxford
Sarah Darby is deputy leader of the Lower Carbon Futures programme at the Environmental Change Institute. Her main interest is in social and behavioural issues related to energy use in buildings. She recently completed a three-year Research Councils Energy Programme Fellowship to investigate feedback to householders in relation to developments in smart metering. She is now working mainly on three projects: two in connection with demand response, time-of-use pricing and customer-supplier relationships in highly-distributed electricity systems (SuperGen HiDEF and ADEPT, EPSRC-funded), and an evaluation of low-carbon communities in the UK (EVALOC, ESRC-funded).
Jos Den Broeder,
Jules Energy
Jos is the Co-founder of Jules Energy UK, the first trading platform for embedded power generators in the UK. He is also Co-owner of Jortech Energy Management Systems: a web based energy management system in The Netherlands used by CHP owners and operators and widely adopted service by growers in Holland. Jos studied Economics as his first degree and obtained an MBA from the University of Bradford.
Dr Nick Eyre,
Programme Leader Lower Carbon Futures, ECI Oxford University
Dr Nick Eyre is Programme Leader of the Lower Carbon Futures group in the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, and a Senior Research Fellow in Energy at Oriel College, Oxford. He is a Co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre, leading its work on energy demand. Nick previously worked at the Energy Saving Trust as Director of Strategy and, on secondment, in Cabinet Office, where he was a co-author of the Government's 2002 Review of Energy Policy.
Nick has been a researcher, consultant, policy analyst and programme manager on energy and environment issues for 25 years. His current research interests focus on energy policy, especially with respect to energy demand and small scale generation technologies. Nick has published extensively on energy and climate issues, including being a co-author of a recent book on carbon markets. He is a lead author in the ongoing Global Energy Assessment and for the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC.
Professor Stephen Frankel,
Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network
Professor Stephen Frankel's academic background is in epidemiology and public health. He has a long-standing interest in sustainability and environmental issues in international health.
He is currently Convener of the Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network (WREN). This community energy programme takes as its denominator the actual scale of the defined population's energy consumption.
Antony Froggatt,
Independent Consultant and Senior Research Fellow, Chatham House
Antony Froggatt is currently an independent consultant on international energy issues and a senior research fellow at Chatham House (also known as the Royal Institute for International Affairs), specialising in energy, environment and development issues. Mr Froggatt was also a lecturer at Ecole des Mines de Nantes on Science Policy. He was an associate fellow at Warwick Business School from 2006-7. He is the author or co-author of dozens of reports, including "Sustainable Energy Security, Strategic risk and opportunities for business", (2010) "Changing Climates"(2007) "Comparisons Among Different Decommissioning Funds Methodologies for Nuclear Installations (2007).
Rufus Ford,
Policy Manager, Scottish & Southern Energy
In his current role as Policy Manager for SSE, Rufus is responsible for developing policy positions, coordinating consultation responses, and liaising with Government, the civil service and other stakeholders on a range of issues with a particular focus on demand side climate change policies such as energy efficiency, microgeneration and renewable heat.
Rufus has a degree in physics and a Masters degree in Architecture: Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies. He has worked in waste education for an environmental charity and managed a consultancy team in a small not for profit company carrying out work such as renewables feasibility studies and climate change strategies for local authorities.
Dr Robert Gross,
Imperial College, UKERC
Dr Robert Gross is Director of ICEPT at Imperial College. He is Head of Technology and Policy Assessment at the UK Energy Research Centre, a Co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre. He has published extensively on energy policy and technology. He convenes Imperial's MSc in Environmental Technology, Energy Policy option. He is currently specialist advisor to the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee enquiry into energy market reform and a member of the DECC academic advisory council on EMR.
In 2008 he acted as Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords Committee on the European Union enquiry into the feasibility of the 2020 targets for renewable energy. In 2007 he contributed to the Commission on Environmental Markets and Economic Performance, published by BERR, Defra and DIUS. He was author of several inputs to the 2004 DTI Renewables Innovation Review. He contributed to supporting analysis for the 2003 White Paper. He co-authored the 2002 Strategic Energy Review. He has undertaken research and consultancy for diverse organisations and companies from BP and several UK utilities, to the UNDP, World Bank, the BWEA and Greenpeace. He makes regular contributions to the popular debate on energy in the mainstream media.
Nick Hartley,
Senior Advisor, Oxera Consulting Ltd
Nick Hartley is an economist who has been working in the energy and environment area since 1990. He was head of environment economics and the Department of the Environment and head of energy economics and the DTI. In 2001-2 he lead the team at the Cabinet Office which produced the PIU Energy Report. He is currently a Senior Adviser at Oxera Consulting Ltd and the chair of the UKERC Research Committee.
Munir Hassan,
Partner, Head of Clean Energy, CMS Cameron McKenna LLP
Munir heads up the Clean Energy practice at CMS Cameron McKenna LLP, which is ranked as a top-tier practice by the leading client legal directories Chambers & Partners and Legal 500. He focuses on major renewables, carbon capture and power projects. He currently advises on National Grid's CCS Projects, the Moray Firth Round 3 offshore wind project and on a number of other onshore and offshore wind, tidal and solar developments. Over the past ten years, Munir has advised on the development of a number of the UK's electricity industry arrangements, advised across the spectrum of technologies, including on the UK's current new nuclear build programme and the development of new network infrastructure, and has advised on similar matters across a number of other jurisdictions across the world.
Malcolm Keay,
Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
Malcolm Keay is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, a centre for advanced research into the social science aspects of energy issues. His research there focuses on the electricity industry and its role in relation to carbon emissions reduction. He also acted as Director of the global study on Energy and Climate Change for the World Energy Council (2006-2007).
Before joining the Institute, Malcolm had an extensive career in the energy sector, and energy policy-making in government, culminating in the position of Director, Energy Policy and Analysis, in the Department of Trade and Industry, UK, from 1996-1999 where he was responsible for general UK energy policy issues including consents for power stations, economic advice on energy and energy projections and modelling. Other posts have included that of Head of Energy Diversification Division at the International Energy Agency in Paris and Chief Executive of the World Coal Institute. He has also undertook a wide range of private consultancy assignments in the energy sector and acted as Special Adviser to a House of Lords Committee Inquiry into Energy Security in Europe.
Dr. Xi Liang,
Energy Policy Group, University of Exeter
Xi Liang is Lecturer in Energy Policy at the Energy Policy Research Group at the University of Exeter. His research interests include the option-base valuation and optimization for energy projects and energy policy, behavioural economics issues in project finance the economics, the finance and policy of deploying CO2 capture and storage (CCS) and CO2 capture ready (CCR) in China and the evolution of regulatory and institutional regimes for energy system and environment protection in China. Dr. Liang received a PhD degree in energy economics from the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. His PhD research topic was Commercialising CCS and CCR in China. Dr. Liang also has rich experience in investment management and advisory. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) of CFA Institute and the Charter of Financial Risk Manager (FRM) by the Global Association and Risk Professionals (GARP).
Richard Lowes,
Policy Manager for Scotia Gas Networks
Having graduated from the Energy Policy masters course at Exeter, Richard began working for Scottish and Southern in their Policy and Public Affairs team focussing on a range of energy issues. Richard then moved across to Scotia Gas Networks, a gas distribution network half owned by SSE. Scotia Gas Networks is the UK's 2nd biggest gas distribution network operating across the whole of Scotland and parts of Southern England. Richard is responsible for government policy and government relations with a focus on the long term future of the gas distribution networks.
Dr Keith MacLean,
Policy and Research Director, Scottish and Southern Energy
Since completing graduate and postgraduate studies in Chemistry at Heriot-Watt and Hamburg Universities, Keith joined 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 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 has recently taken the lead on SSE's Research and Development activities.
Outside SSE, he is a Director on the Board of the Scottish Renewables and is also Chairman of the Board at the UK Business Council for Sustainable Energy (UKBCSE).
Keith was appointed in 2007 as a government advisor on renewable energy policy and was recently made an Honorary Fellow of Energy Policy at the University of Exeter.
Professor Catherine Mitchell,
Energy Policy Group, University of Exeter
Catherine Mitchell is Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Exeter and has worked on energy issues for 25 years. Catherine has advised the UK and international governments on a broad range of energy policy issues. She is Coordinating Lead Author of the Policy, Financing & Implementation Chapter of the IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation; she is also a Lead Analyst for the Global Energy Assessment undertaken through the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). She is also PI of an ESRC/EPSRC interdisciplinary research cluster on Energy Security in a Multi-Polar World and is a co-director of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC). 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).
Nick Molho,
Head of Energy Policy, WWF UK
Nick works on a wide range of energy policy areas, specialising in particular on consultations, parliamentary enquiries and research relating to power generation and transmission issues. Prior to joining WWF, Nick spent 6 years with city law firm CMS Cameron McKenna, working as an energy solicitor for a range of governments, energy companies and energy regulators. As an energy lawyer, Nick worked on a wide range of legal and policy issues relating to electricity market restructuring projects (such as in Northern Ireland and Saudi Arabia), power projects (including several offshore wind, wave and CCS projects in the UK), offshore transmission projects and emissions trading. Nick has a First Class English Law and German Law Degree, where he specialised in Environmental Law and in particular on the ability of emission trading schemes as a tool to tackle climate change.
Dr Gill Owen,
Senior Research Fellow, Warwick Business School
Dr Gill Owen is a Senior Research Fellow at Warwick Business School. She is also a Non-Executive Director of the water regulator Ofwat and Deputy Chair of the Government*s Fuel Poverty Advisory Group. She was a Commissioner of the UK*s Competition Commission for ten years until 2002 and has also been a non-executive board member of the energy regulator, Ofgem. She continues a close involvement with Ofgem as a member of Ofgem*s : Social Action Strategy Review Group; Smart Meters Consumer Advisory Group; Consumer Challenge Group for the Distribution and Transmission Price Reviews. Her main research interests are energy efficiency, smart meters and demand side response.
Ed Reed,
Cornwall Consulting
Ed graduated from Leeds University in 2000 with a 2:1 in Energy Science and has worked in the sector since 2002, initially at the Institution of Civil Engineers, and latterly with Energywatch, the gas and electricity consumer council. For Cornwall Energy, Ed is among other things the vice-chair of the Energy Suppliers Forum that brings together each month smaller energy suppliers in the household and business markets to debate and discuss emerging energy policy, regulation and legislation.
Simon Roberts,
Chief Executive, Centre for Sustainable Energy
Simon has been helping people and organisations to develop effective responses to the threat of climate change and the misery of cold homes since 1985. He is Chief Executive of the Bristol-based charity, the Centre for Sustainable Energy, having previously worked in senior roles for Triodos Bank and Friends of the Earth.
Simon has recently contributed to CSE's work on: supporting 'low carbon localism'; analyzing the distributional impacts of UK climate policies, and; enhancing community engagement with sustainable energy initiatives. His many advisory roles include DECC's Green Deal Consumer Advisory Panel, Ofgem's Consumer Challenge Group and University of Surrey's RESOLVE programme. Simon is a non-executive director of Triodos Renewables Plc and represents CSE on the board of Energy Advice South West Ltd, a joint venture between four charities delivering energy advice across SW England. He has spoken on the challenges for UK energy policy of embedding a sophisticated understanding of Big Society and Localism.
Sarah Samuel,
Head of Sustainable Energy Policy, Ofgem
Sarah is Head of Sustainable Energy Policy in the Sustainable Development division at Ofgem, the gas and electricity market regulator. Sarah has leads on developing Ofgem's approach to SD issues across Ofgem's remit, such as the current RIIO-T1 and RIIO-GD1 network price controls and transmission charging reviews. She also leads on major projects such as the Energy Demand Research Project, which is examining how customers respond to better information about their energy consumption, as well as cross-cutting issues such as demandside response.
Prior to joining Ofgem in 2002, Sarah worked in private consultancy. She has also held roles in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, where she worked on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, and as Head of Energy and Climate Change at the Sustainable Development Commission.
Professor Jim Skea,
Research Director, UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC)
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 has been Professor of Sustainable Energy at Imperial College since May 2009. 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 Board of the Blackrock New Energy Investment Trust plc. He was Launch Director for the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership and for several years chaired the Scottish Power Green Energy Trust. He also chaired the Technical Advisory Group that developed the British Standards Institution specification for assessing the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of goods and services.
Simon Skillings,
Director, Trilemma UK
Simon has worked in the energy industry since 1984. After spending some time in the Research Division of the CEGB, he worked on the privatisation process in 1989. During the 1990's he worked for Powergen and held a variety of strategic, trading and regulatory roles. Following the takeover of Powergen by E.ON in 2002, he was appointed Director of Strategy and Energy Policy for the UK business and a member of the Top Executive Group of E.ON AG. Simon has worked independently since 2007, including a variety of assignments for industry, Ofgem and the UK Government. He is currently a Senior Associate with E3G, a not-for-profit organisation working on sustainability issues.
Mike Thompson,
Committee on Climate Change
Mike Thompson heads the Power and Cross-cutting team at the Committee on Climate Change. He led the analysis for the Committee's fourth carbon budget report published in December 2010 and most recently was responsible for the Committee's renewable energy review. Mike has been with CCC since the secretariat was first established in shadow form in 2007 and prior to that was head of indirect tax forecasting at HMRC. He studied economics at St. John's College, Cambridge and University College London.
Tim Tutton,
Independent Energy & Regulation Advisor
Tim Tutton is one of the UK's leading specialists in the regulation and restructuring of the electricity and gas sectors and continues to advise major clients in these sectors. He was Director of Regulation at National Grid from 1999 to 2007 and, before that, Director of UK Utility Regulation in the management consultancy practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers. In addition, he has been a Senior Adviser at the economics consultancy Oxera, a Senior Economist at the Central Electricity Generating Board, an Economic Adviser at the then Department of Energy and a Lecturer in Economics at City University.
Jamie Walls,
Vice President, Shell UK
Jamie Walls worked as an economist for some years before joining Shell Australia and moving into external relations. He has since worked in Australia, the UK, China and the USA. His experience ranges across issues management, government relations, community relations and corporate communications.
In recent years his focus has included China (where he was External Affairs Manager), Russia (where he worked on Shell's Sakhalin project), and the Americas (where he was Group Issues Adviser and later supported Shell's Alaska exploration venture).
Based in Washington from 2008, he worked on international government relations focused on Africa, relations with a number of non-government stakeholders in the US, and coordination of Shell's approach to stakeholder relationships for a group of oil and gas development projects in Canada, Alaska and the US Rockies.
In November 2009, he became Vice President of Communications for Shell in the UK, based in London.
Judith Ward,
Sustainability First & Hon. Fellow: University of Exeter
Judith is an energy policy professional with long-standing practical experience of both the utility and consumer worlds. She is an adviser to the UK Business Council for Sustainable Energy (UKBCSE) and a board member of the Institute for European Environment Policy. Judith spent fourteen years with National Grid (1990-2004), where her last role was a six-year period as Group Head of Public Affairs. Her early career was spent, inter al, in policy roles with the House of Commons Environment Select Committee and with the national Electricity Consumers' Council. She has a master's degree in Energy Resources Management. Over the past six years, Judith has written several major policy papers on low carbon energy for the UKBCSE, and has published extensively on policies for GB household smart meters with the environment think-tank, Sustainability First. This demand-side work is now being taken forward in a major new GB Electricity Demand-Side study by Sustainability First, supported under the Low Carbon Networks Fund, and coordinated via a Smart Demand Forum. Judith is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Exeter and a member of the DECC / Ofgem Smart Grids Forum.
Dr Bridget Woodman,
Energy Policy Group, University of Exeter
Bridget Woodman is course director for the MSc Energy Policy and a member of the Energy Policy Group in the School of Geography, University of Exeter. Previously she worked at Warwick Business School as a UKERC Research Fellow in its Infrastructure and Supply theme. Prior to that she undertook her DPhil on Renewables and Distributed Generation at SPRU, University of Sussex. The majority of Dr Woodman's work is focused on the policy and regulatory aspects of a transition to sustainable energy systems and her publications reflect this area she has developed. She currently sits on the Board of Trustees for Cornwall Neighbourhoods for Change. Bridget has been involved in engaging with a wide range of stakeholders, including companies, communities and individuals on both climate and energy related issues. Bridget has provided advice, reporting and consultation on energy issues for Green Alliance, European Commission, DTI, BERR and Greenpeace. Bridget has a strong focus on policy and regulatory aspects of delivering sustainable energy systems from a multidisciplinary perspective.
