Manuel Sánchéz Jimenéz

Policy Officer Smart Grid, European Commission

Dr.-Ing Manuel Sánchéz Jimenéz joined the Commission in 1996 as a Project Officer within the Renewable Energies Unit in Directorate General for Research. During twelve years he coordinated the areas of "Integration of Renewable Energies" and "Smart Energy Networks" and launched the European Technology Platform "SmartGrids" in 2006. He has contributed to set up a new sector for "Information and Communication Technologies solutions for Energy Efficiency" in 2007 at the Directorate General for the Information Society and Media. Since 2009 he is Policy Officer for Smart Grids at the Directorate General for Energy. He launched the European Task Force for Smart Grids in November 2009 and chairs the European Reference Group for standardisation of Smart Grids.

Highlights of the European efforts for smart grids and the way forward

Smart grids can substantially increase energy efficiency, improve integration of renewables and electric vehicles into the grid, empower the consumer and boost the overall competitiveness of European business. Since 2004 the European Commission has played an important role in its definition and progress by developing a pro-active approach to smart grids and continuing its leadership towards a low-carbon economy. It includes a set of actions for the developing of new technical standards, ensuring data protection for consumers, establishing a regulatory framework to provide incentives for Smart Grid deployment and providing continued support to innovation for technology and additional new large-scale demonstration initiatives.

Rolf Adam

Director, Global Solutions development for Utilities Industry & Smart Grid Sales EMEA, Cisco

Rolf Adam is a Director with Cisco. He is responsible on a global basis for the solutions development for the utilities industry and leads the Energy & Smart Grid Sales Business Development in EMEA. In addition to his responsibilities at Cisco, he is an industry advisor to WHEB Partners (Cleantech fund), sits on the Advisory Board of Entelios AG (Demand Response start-up), and is an expert to the European Commission on Smart Grid.Prior to joining Cisco he was a Principal at Booz Allen Hamilton where he had built and managed the European Smart Grid Practice and an Associate at A.T. Kearney. He holds a Masters Degree in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Eichstaett and a MBA from Webster University.

Gridonomics: A Future History of the Grid

Smart Grid as we have come to know it today has come of age and we are looking back on a decade of Smart Grid technology, pilots and conferences. While the focus has been on technology, bringing the Smart Grid to life will require striking the balance between Technology, Economics and Politics – Gridonomics. In this keynote we will provide an outlook on how the Smart Grid will evolve over the upcoming decade and what it takes to make this evolution happen.

Branko Bjelajac

Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Landis+Gyr

Branko Bjelajac, 42, is Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Landis+Gyr, Switzerland, the global leader in smart metering, since 2007. He is responsible for technology strategy, global alignment of research and development priorities, processes and resources as well as quality management. Before joining Landis+Gyr, he has held executive positions in Research & Development, Marketing, Business Development and Corporate Strategy at several well-known telecommunications and consumer electronics companies such as Mannesmann (now Vodafone), Grundig, SITA (Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques) and France Telecom/Orange. Mr. Bjelajac holds a diploma degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from Aachen University of Technology, Germany. He gained executive qualifications from INSEAD, (France), IMD (Switzerland) and the Stanford GSB (USA). Mr. Bjelajac is member of the IEEE, the VDE and the Münchner Kreis, and a board member of Electrosuisse CES (Comité Electrotechnique Suisse).

The Last Mile - Reloaded

In the late 1990’s, the telecommunication industry started introducing broadband services. Access networks using high-speed „Last Mile“ technology had to be deployed as a prerequisite. Lessons learned back then can help us with today’s challenges in Smart Grid Communications, the next „Last Mile“ race. Triggered by the convergence of technologies and changing legislation, many innovative business models had been tried out in an environment characterized by fuzzy service definitions, upcoming standards and the need for large investments. The winners of the first „Last Mile“ race were the end-users, DSL technology vendors, incumbent telco’s, and business model innovators like Amazon and ebay. In this keynote we will discuss how we can benefit from their experience.

Lennart Söder

Professor of Electric Power Systems at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden

Lennart Söder is a Professor of Electric Power Systems at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden, since 1999. KTH is responsible for the project “Smart Power” within the InnoEnergy consortium. Currently, he is the head of the Division of Electric Power Systems. His research interests include smart grids, distribution systems, power system planning, integration of wind power, deregulated electricity market, HVDC, power system control, distributed generation and power system reliability.

On the value of SmartGrids for power systems

Lennart Söder will talk about power system operation of today and future challenges with much larger amounts of variable power sources. One solution to these challenges is more communication, more control and more demand side management, but there are also other solutions. It can though be expected that much more intelligence will be present in the future power system since the cost decreases and the demand increases.