Frauke Thies

Since September 2015, Frauke is Executive Director of smartEn, the European business association for digital and decentralised energy solutions focussing on the interaction of demand and supply in an integrated, decarbonised system.

She has been actively involved in European Energy Policy since 2004, and held different positions at the German Energy Ministry, Greenpeace EU and the European Photovoltaic Industry Association SolarPower Europe. She also worked on secondments in Washington D.C. and in New Delhi, India.

Frauke holds a Master degree in Environmental Sciences from Lüneburg University, Germany, and an Executive MBA from Vlerick Business School, Belgium.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

Closing the conference

Rolf Bienert

Rolf Bienert is the Managing & Technical Director of the OpenADR Alliance. In this capacity, Rolf oversees all aspects of the non-profit organization, the technical developments, and the certification program. Before going independent, Rolf was the Technical Manager for Telecom and the Global Competence Center for emerging communication protocols at a global testing firm. In this role, Rolf was involved in many international standardization efforts and guided the company’s efforts in these areas.

Rolf has been an active member of the NIST SGTCC, USNAP Alliance, ZigBee Alliance, and other organizations driving the development of new technologies with a specific focus on standardization, certification and interoperability. Rolf holds a Master’s Degree in electrical engineering.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

DER Control Strategies and EV Charging

Stefan Lodeweyckx

Stefan Lodeweyckx is co-founder of i.LECO and former CEO and founder of ENERVALIS. He has 20 years broad international industrial experience on both technical as managerial level and has worked at different sized companies amongst which are Philips (Natlab), 2 startups, Option (telco devices) and Sony. This experience is complemented by his MSc and MBA degrees and 1 granted patent and 6 more patent applications.

He founded Enervalis in February 2013 and has since then successfully acquired different projects and customers. His expertise is in advanced energy services, business modelling, commercialisation and management.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

Local Energy Communities in practice: the Woerden pilot

Ton Wurth

Ton Wurth is a strategic energy transition consultant at Siemens Smart Infrastructure. He has experience in investment planning within the chemical industry and the energy-infrastructure business. The last years he is involved in the development of an approach to develop robust energy-infrastructure plans within the context of a deep uncertain future.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

Creating robust adaptive investment plans for an adaptive energy-infrastructure in the Netherlands

Maarten Sloot

As portfolio manager Digital Grid at Siemens, Maarten Sloot is responsible for the development of new products and services on the subject of digitalization of asset management and maintenance and grid-optimization. With his young mind he is able to look beyond borders in order to create new solutions for problems related to the energy transition. One of his focus points is the collaboration between IT and OT in the DSO market. In his believe, we should be aware of the value of data we have or could have at the grid edges. “This is in the end the place where most of the impact of the energy transition will be created”, he states.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

The grid edge

James Matthys-Donnadieu

James Matthys-Donnadieu is currently head of the Market Development Department at Elia Transmission Belgium, that is responsible for the design and implementation of all interconnection capacity, energy, balancing and adequacy market mechanisms in Belgium and the integration thereof within the broader European context. He is also a supervisory board member of EPEX Spot SE and chairman of the supervisory board of HGRT.
Before joining Elia in its current role, he held positions as COO of the APX Group and CEO of its subsidiary Belpex and as a member of the Management Board of APX-Endex BV.
James holds a Master in Business Economics from the University of Antwerp and a Master in Business Administration from the Vlerick Management School.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

Introductory keynote speech

Thijs Vral

Thijs is part of the Innovation team of Elia Group, the transmission system operator in Belgium and a part of Germany. In this team, he is responsible for the innovation portfolio related to system operations. He also takes a leading role in projects related to electromobility.

Before taking this position, Thijs has worked in the Power System Operations and Security department of Elia, and as a project manager for electromobility related activities. He also worked abroad for seven months, in engineering, operations, maintenance of microgrids.

Thijs holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Ghent University, and a Master’s degree in Sustainable Energy Technologies from Delft University of Technology.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G)

Jelle Meersmans

Jelle builds on seven years of experience in the energy sector across different roles in the consultancy, energy retail, and technology space.

His passion lies in new business models linked to consumer-centric demand-side response that will allow us to decarbonize our energy system.

In his current role as Product Manager at Enervalis, he is responsible for product management linked to smart homes, smart EV charging, and the VPP aggregation layer.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G)

Pieter Vanbaelen

Pieter joined Elia in 2015 and works as a Product Manager within the team of Market Development.

He is specialized in demand response, decentralized flexibility, and works passionately on the integration of renewable energy resources in the Belgian grid.

Lately, his focus lies on the innovations that are taking place at the residential level, such as the Internet of Things and Blockchain, and he investigates via pilot projects how these technologies disrupt our current way of working and create value for end-consumers and society as a whole.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

Internet of Energy – FLEXITY

Arnaud Devleeschauwer

My talks @ Flexcon2020

Internet of Energy – FLEXITY

HALLSTEIN HAGEN

Hallstein Hagen is a Senior Consultant at NODES. He has, since 2016, been part of the Agder Energi Flexibility project that lead to the establishment of NODES with Nord Pool. Hallstein has long experience delivering Energy Trading and Risk Management software to the energy sector. He has international experience from the finance and commodity industry from his time at Reuters. Hallstein holds a Bachelor in Marketing from Norwegian School of Marketing and Business Studies (NMH) and Banking studies (Bankakademiet).

My talks @ Flexcon2020

NODES – Integrated flexibility market

Benjamin Grunfeld

Benjamin Grunfeld is a partner in the global energy, sustainability, and infrastructure segment at Guidehouse and the European and Middle Eastern utility and energy company practice leader. He is a trusted advisor to senior leaders across the entire energy sector value chain. He has considerable consulting project experience in the areas of strategy and operations, mergers and acquisitions, project development and finance, energy efficiency and demand-side management programming, regulatory economics, electricity market design and operations, and energy policy. He is a recognized expert on the energy sector globally and has served as an expert witness in regulatory and civil matters. Benjamin has worked in vertically integrated and restructured energy markets, as well as a range of developed and emerging economies around the world. Benjamin has an M.Sc. in Management and Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom, and a B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics and Electrical Engineering from Queen’s University in Canada.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

Making flexibility work

Arjan Wargers

Arjan Wargers is Manager Research & Innovation at ElaadNL and as Innovator at Enexis. Arjan has been working for ElaadNL since 2010. Arjan is responsible for multiple initiatives to explore solutions to ‘unlock’ flexibility from (mainly) EV’s; smart charging. The smart charging possibilities which are experimented within ElaadNL range from direct control, indirect control, incentives and market place. Although the main focus is on experimentation with the technical level of the solutions also the functional and legislative level are in scope.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

Smart Charging & Energy Flexibility behind the meter protocols

Hanspeter Höschle

Hanspeter Höschle obtained a Ph.D. degree in 2018 at the KU Leuven and EnergyVille, Belgium, working on power system economics and the modeling of electricity markets, in particular capacity mechanisms. Since 2018, he is a researcher on energy markets at the Energy Technology department of VITO and EnergyVille. He works on dedicated market models capturing specific characteristics of future energy markets and power systems. This includes the impact of decentralized generation capacities, flexible loads, storage, and interconnection capacities. He is involved in national and international research projects, such as a study on cross-border participation in capacity mechanisms for the European Commission and EU-SysFlex (H2020).

My talks @ Flexcon2020

Unlocking more flexibility with technology neutral system services

Philippa Hardy

Philippa leads the development of Delta-ee’s demand-side flexibility research, which;

Analyses how the dynamic markets are developing
Evaluates customers, business models and technology innovations
Identifies opportunities
Investigates the competitive landscape and USPs required for success
Assesses the flexibility ‘prize‘

She also manages and works on a wide range of bespoke consultancy projects for a variety of clients on; demand-side flexibility, smart buildings, and low carbon heating, providing clients with tailored strategic advice, market, and technology insight, and primary customer research.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

Succesfull frameworks in energy Flexibility

Furui Shuji

My talks @ Flexcon2020

Automated demand response for air conditioning

Frank Wiersma

Frank decided to focus on the transition to a carbon-neutral energy system in 2008. Over the years since, his work included front end development as well as operation and maintenance of major renewable energy projects, including offshore wind projects in several European countries. Since 2012 he is working on the essential building blocks for an integrated energy system in which wind and solar power play a dominant role. He has worked on many national as well as European studies on energy storage, demand-side response, decarbonizing heat, as well as the role of flexible conventional generation in the energy transition. Frank joined TenneT in 2017, and his current work focusses on the future demand for and the potential supply of flexibility resources in an integrated European electricity market.
Overall, he has over 20 years of experience. Earlier in his career, he has built an extensive international track record in water engineering and the oil and gas industry. Frank holds degrees in Civil Engineering and Economics.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

The marketvalue of Flexibility & GOPACS

Alexander Savelkoul

Alexander Savelkoul is Manager Flexibility at Enpuls. Enpuls is part of the Enexis Group, which also includes the DSO Enexis Netbeheer. Enpuls was founded in 2016 to help accelerate the energy transition. Flexibility is a crucial element in the energy transition and an indispensable instrument for modern energy infrastructure management. That’s why flexibility is an area of particular interest and one of the four key themes at Enpuls.

Throughout his career, Alexander has worked in different roles and capacities in the energy sector. He started as a management trainee at Essent, where he worked in various roles in waste management, renewable energy development, regulatory affairs, and energy trading. Alexander was involved in the development of the carbon trading team at Eneco and held a senior position at Mabanaft, responsible for the setup and management of its international carbon trading business.
Subsequently, he and a partner started Panorama Energy, an advisory firm specialized in managing the development of renewable energy and carbon reduction projects in Latin America and Africa, after which he joined Enpuls in November 2016.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

(Hybrid) Heatpumps in smart grid

Roy Roessink

Roy Roessink is Specialist Flexibility at Enpuls. Enpuls is part of the Enexis Group, which also includes the DSO Enexis Netbeheer. Enpuls was founded in 2016 to help accelerate the energy transition. Flexibility is a crucial element in the energy transition and an indispensable instrument for modern energy infrastructure management. That’s why flexibility is an area of particular interest and one of the four key themes at Enpuls.

Throughout his career, Roy has worked in different roles in developing new business concerning IT and Energy. He started his career at TNO, but since the 90s, he has been involved in commercial energy services. First as an energy consultant, but later in several management roles. In the last ten years, he developed SAAS for Van Beek Ingenieurs in Arnhem (Priva Group). For Priva, he was involved in the integration of energy services in building management systems. Roy has a passion for smart grids and its challenges.

My talks @ Flexcon2020

(Hybrid) Heatpumps in smart grid

Jan Pellis

Jan Pellis is an innovation theme manager ‘Flexibility’ at grid operator Stedin. He is committed to starting innovation projects to develop the role of Stedin in the energy transition. ‘I am really happy if I can combine my knowledge of the energy system with new technologies, insights, and market developments to build the energy system of the future.’ This covers enabling and connecting new and existing parties in the energy market to test solutions for challenges the energy system faces. He also contributes to different nationwide working groups to understand and shape the energy transition. Recent projects Jan is involved in are: ‘The Layered Energy System,’ ‘An assessment framework for the application of flexibility in the Dutch power system.’

My talks @ Flexcon2020

Market insight on Energy Flexibility Heatpumps & EV ChargePoints

Bert den Ouden

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Closing the conference