Keynote Speakers

Dr Iain Staffell

Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Energy, Centre for Environmental Policy

Research:

Dr Iain Staffell is a senior lecturer in sustainable energy at the Centre for Environmental Policy with fifteen years' experience in energy and R&D. Iain is co-developer of the EnergyStorage.ninja and Renewables.ninja platforms, for modelling the business case for energy storage and the productivity of wind and solar power plants anywhere in the world. Iain also leads the Electric Insights project, and interactive website and quarterly report on the supply, demand, price and environmental impacts of Britain's electricity. He is one of the founders of Power Swarm, a network of 400 academics, industry and government experts working on power system transformation. Iain recently published a new book jointly with Oliver Schmidt called Monetizing Energy Storage which promises to be an important contribution to the field.

 

Professor Haisheng Chen

Director, Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences 

Research: 

Professor Haisheng Chen is the Director of the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

His research interests include large-scale energy storage, confined flow and heat transfer, and internal flows and rotating machinery. He has published 4 monographs, 10 book chapters, and 250+ papers in peer-reviewed journals, and filed 400+ patents (with 300+ granted).

Professor Chen currently serves as Vice President and Secretary-General of the Chinese Society of Engineering Thermophysics, Director of the Energy Storage Committee of the China Energy Research Society, Director-General of the International Energy Storage Alliance, Deputy Director of the Energy Storage Committee of the Chinese Chemical Society, and Deputy or Executive Deputy Editor of the Journal of Thermal Science, Energy Storage, and Journal of Engineering Thermophysics. He is a member of the Energy PlanningGgroup of National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Science and Technology, National Energy Administration, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Professor Chen is a world-leading authority on Compressed Air Energy Storage and his work has been commercialised by Zhong Chu Guo Neng Co. Ltd. with the world’s largest (300MW) CAES system now under construction. 

 

Dr Tim Armitage

Senior Geoscientist, British Geological Survey

Research: 

Tim researches the geological storage for energy, including underground hydrogen storage in salt caverns and depleted gas fields. He produced the UK Integrated Hydrogen Storage Database, an open-access GIS tool that helps pre-feasibility studies to co-locate hydrogen storage with production, transport, and demand.

Tim has also consulted for energy producers, gas distribution networks, market regulators and government on hydrogen storage in the UK, including for the UK Government’s Hydrogen Storage Business Model. He promotes the need for energy storage in a decarbonised grid and the significant upscale of energy storage in the UK.

 

Professor Richard Wills

Professor of Electrochemical Energy Systems, University of Southampton

Research: 

Richard Wills is Professor of Electrochemical Energy Systems and Head of Department for Mechanical Engineering within the School of Engineering at the University of Southampton. He has over 20 years' experience of research in eletrochemical energy storage and conversion technologies for portable electronics, electric vehicles and the efficient integration of renewable generation. A strong focus is on the development of systems using environmental and life cycle assessment metrics as part of the design process. Principally, involving the use of aqueous electrolytes and abundant, low-cost, active materials that are part of established material flows and recycling processes. 

 

Dr Robert House

Senior Research Fellow, University of Oxford

Research: 

Dr House is a materials chemist in the Department of Materials where he holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship and leads a group researching next generation battery materials. His research focuses on materials discovery for Li-ion and beyond Li batteries and understanding charge storage mechanisms.

He is a Co-Investigator on the Faraday Institution's CATMAT and NEXGENNA projects working on the next generation Li-ion and Na-ion batteries. He leads the Henry Royce Institute's Technology Platform at Oxford and works closely with several UK-based battery SMEs on industrial research challenges. In 2023, he was listed as one of Forbes Magazine's 30 under 30.

 

Dr Rachel Lee

Whole Energy Insights Manager, National Grid 

Research: 

Rachel is a Chartered Electrical Engineer and Fellow of the Energy Institute and recently completed a PhD exploring a fair transition to electric vehicles. She has worked in energy and sustainability for over 30 years.  Her roles have ranged from utility plant operation and maintenance through project development and construction of gas and biomass power plant, wind and solar.  She worked in the public sector, both in the UK and Australia, in roles covering electricity system reliability and the net zero transition. She has recently joined the soon to be ‘National Energy System Operator’ as Whole Energy Insights Manager.

 

More to be announced.