Karina Veum, National Expert, EU Commission DG Tren
Oliver Schäfer, Policy Director, European Renewable Energy Council, EREC
Oliver Schäfer was parliamentary advisor for energy policy to Mechtild Rothe and other members of the European Parliament for several years in Brussels. He was responsible for all energy policy and related matters. In 2003 he joined the European Renewable Energy Council as policy director.
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Otto Pirker, Eurelectric WG Hydro, Verbund Austrian Hydropower AG
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Otto Pirker is the Austrian representative and chairman of the working group "hydro" at EURELECTRIC. He is also the chairman of a working group at VGB dealing with hydropower and the implementation of the EU - WFD.
Bernhard Pelikan, President, European Small Hydropower Association, ESHA
Bernhard Pelikan is working at the Institute for Water Management at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna. He has been the CEO for Austrian Small Hydropower Association for 18 years and President of ESHA since 2004.
Gema Sanbruno, Project Manager, European Small Hydropower Association, ESHA
Gema Sanbruno is an economist and has been working with Energy issues since 1997, first as Energy Expert at EUROSTAT on energy statistics and then as project manager at ESHA.
Thorstein Jenssen, CEO Fjellkraft AS, Norway
Thorstein Jenssen is CEO of Fjellkraft AS, and has 13 years experience in business development, power trading and risk management, project financing and M&A in the Nordic power market. Fjellkraft is a leading developer of small scale hydro in Norway and expects to invest in excess of 250 million EUR in small scale hydro plants over the coming years.
Vladimir Kercan, Managing Director, Turboinstitut d.d., Slovenia
Vladimir Kercan has worked for the Turboinstitut since 1975, with small turbine design and production and small hydro dimensioning and development. Turboinstitut is specialising in turbine model research, development and testing, turbine site testing and dynamic behaviour analyses of hydraulic machinery.
Luigi Papetti , Studio Frosio, Italy
Luigi Papetti is a chemical and hydraulic engineer, involved in the design and supervision of small hydroelectric plants since 1990. He is specialised in environmental problems and impacts connected with the realisation of small hydroelectric plants.
Simon Currie and Richard Metcalf, Partners, Norton Rose LLP
Simon Currie is a partner in the London office of international law firm Norton Rose. He leads the Energy team in London and focuses on clean and renewable energy projects. He has experience in run of the river hydro assets, larger hydro projects and wave power.
Richard Metcalf is a partner in the London office of international law firm Norton Rose. Richard focuses primarily on energy projects in emerging markets, in particular CEE and Africa. He has a wide range of experience in the hydropower industry globally.
Technical, commercial, and financial issues including:
Vivek Mittal, Managing Director, Ygrene Energy Partners Limited
Vivek Mittal co-founded Ygrene Energy Partners in 2006. The company is investing in renewable energy assets in Central Europe. Prior to this he worked in Project Finance for the power and renewable energy sector, and has financed € 2.0 billion worth of projects in over 25 countries.
Jan Tosnar, Managing Director, Hydropol Project & Management a.s. Prague
Marko Gospodjinacki, President, Slovenian Small Hydropower Association
Marko Gospodjinacki B.Sc. is the president of Slovenian Small Hydropower Association since 1998. He is employed at Ekowatt Ltd. that represents small power producers on the electricity market. He is a member of the governing board of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia - Energy Association and the governing board of ESHA.
Cristiano Spillati, Emerging Energy Research, Spain
Cristiano Spillati participates in the ongoing research and delivery of EER's consulting projects. He is an expert in the areas of wind power, solar power, biomass, and wave/tidal energy.
Dr. Jochen Weilepp, Head of Ocean Energies at Voith Siemens Hydro Power Generation GmbH & Co. KG
Jochen Weilepp is the Head of Oceans Energies at Voith Siemens Hydro, since 2005. The Ocean Energies Group is responsible for the development and marketing of wave and tidal current power technologies at Voith Siemens Hydro and its daughter company Wavegen.
Kenneth Tease, Technical Services Manager, Wavegen (A Voith and Siemens Company)
Ken Tease is Technical Service Manager of Wavegen, a wholly owned subsidiary of Voith Siemens Hydro power Generation located in Inverness, Scotland. He is an expert in turbine design and development, experimental prototype testing, parametric system modelling, computational fluid dynamics and finite element analysis.