Newcastle University

Adel El Gammal
Secretary General of The European Energy Research Alliance (EERA), Belgium

Adel's biography:
Adel El Gammal is a recognized expert and a senior EU Affairs professional in the fields of low carbon technologies, energy transition, and climate change. 

Before joining EERA as Secretary General, Adel was active for the last 10 years in the EU climate energy debate, notably as Director of the Becquerel Institute, a consultancy providing advanced research and intelligence on the energy transition, and Secretary General of the EU PV Industry Association (EPIA, now SolarPower Europe), where he launched the SET-Plan Solar Europe Industry Initiative (SEII).

Before focusing his activities on renewable energy and the energy transition, Adel held various international executive positions in blue chip companies active in the field of IT and Management Consulting.

Adel is civil engineer from Ecole Polytechnique of Brussels, holds degrees in Business Administration from Solvay Business School (Belgium) and Insead (France) and later specialized in Environment Management (IGEAT, Belgium).

Keynote title: Policy and economic challenges related to the energy transition

Petter Egil Røkke
Research Director of SINTEF Energy Research, Norway

Petter's biography:
Petter Røkke joined SINTEF Energy Research in 2005 as a Research Scientist.  During his time at SINTEF, he has worked on various projects supported by different funding bodies including the Research Council of Norway, European Commission and industry.  Petter’s research expertise is wide-ranging, which covers (but not limited to) gas turbines, carbon capture and storage, oil and gas processing, emission mitigation and energy efficiency.  Currently, his primary focus lies on energy efficiency in industry as well as biofuels and bioenergy.

Petter has been involved in high level management of a number of large projects.  When the OG21 strategy was revised, Petter was one of the advisory group members of Future Technologies for Production, Processing and Transport of Oil and Gas.  In relation to the national initiative, Energi21 A Collective R&D Strategy for the Energy Sector, Petter advised the subgroup which focussed on Energy Systems – Transmission.  Currently, he is the Coordinator of the European Energy Research Alliance’s Joint Programme for Energy Efficiency in Industrial Processes.  Also, he chairs the management board of the Centre for Environmental-friendly Energy Research within Bioenergy, in addition to being a board member of NoBio – Norwegian Bioenergy Association and SINTEF TTO.

Keynote title: Energy efficiency in industry in the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) plan – R&D opportunities and challenges

Dave Pearson
Director of Star Renewable Energy, UK

David's biography:
Dave Pearson moved from the refrigeration industry into heatpump in around 2009 whilst Director Innovation at Star Refrigeration Ltd. The UK’s largest industrial refrigeration contractor saw the opportunity for sustainable heating systems if sourcing heat from large heatpumps. Whilst the heatpumps are somewhat source agnostic the practical development dictates highest efficiency is best but lowest capital cost and lowest risk are also factors.

With over seven years experience gained since the deployment of the world’s largest 90C heatpump using ammonia in Drammen, Dave will review the landscape for large water source heatpumps and suggest how these can best be deployed as part of a wider community-scale solution to deliver future energy needs in a practical and more importantly investible manner.

Dave commented, “there are both huge opportunities to deploy solutions in communities but also huge opportunities to improve both technology and deployment that will bring significant opportunities in many ways, whether research, management or investment”.

Keynote title: The future of renewable heating

Kees Biesheuvel
Technology Innovation Manager Engineering Solutions of Dow Benelux B.V. and
Cluster Director of the ISPT Innovation Cluster: Utilities and Optimal Use of Heat, the Netherlands

Kees' biography:
Cornelis (Kees) Biesheuvel is the Technology Innovation Manager of the DOW Benelux company.  He holds a bachelors engineering degree in Applied Physics from the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. He has 30 years of industrial experience within Dow. He served in many different local as well as global roles during his career, ranging from Flow lab design, Turbo Machinery automation, global instrument subject matter expert and global product manager BPCS and SIS systems.  He also serves as the Director of the cluster  “Utilities and Optimal use of Heat” within the Institute of Sustainable Process Technology (ISPT). In this position, he plays an important role in aligning the technology development of knowledge institutes and universities with the needs of the process industry regarding utilities and the optimal use of heat.

Keynote title: Innovative options for efficient use of heat in industry

Alistair Guthrie
Arup Fellow and the former Design Leader of Global Sustainable Buildings

Alistair's biography:
Alistair Guthrie is an Arup Fellow and until recently Leader of global sustainability skills at Arup. He is a Professor of Environmental Design in the School of Built Environment Nottingham University. He joined Arup in 1979 and in 1985 opened Arup’s first office in the USA. He has been involved in the design of arts & culture, education, commercial and high-rise buildings worldwide. His particular expertise is the application of building physics to find innovative, integrated and sustainable solutions to help create some of the world’s best buildings. He has also been involved in a number of projects with integrated renewable energy and storage systems. Alistair’s projects include the Menil collection in Houston Texas, Kansai Airport in Japan, the Eden Project and the Shard in the UK, the California academy of science and the SNFCC cultural centre in Athens. 

Keynote title: Building sustainability