Ocean Energy Forum - Technology Committee

Fiona Buckley

Fiona Buckley is Vice President Business Development at Tractebel Engineering, prior to this she was Product Manager for Offshore Wind and Marine Energies. She graduated as Maritime Engineer and completed her education with a Masters in Physical Oceanography from the University of Bangor. She has been working in the renewable energy sector for over 11 years and in the offshore wind industry for over 9 years. Fiona has been involved in other marine technologies and project for over 6 years. Making profit her experience in managing different kind of projects with multiple stakeholders, Fiona has participated in the conception and realisation of different maritime projects in Europe and LATAM.

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Alex Alliston, PhD (Cantab), CEng, MIMechE

Commercial Manager, Alstom Ocean Energy

Vice-Chair TP Ocean Executive Committee

Alex is a Chartered mechanical engineer with an engineering degree and PhD from Cambridge. He has twelve years experience running product development and technical sales & marketing for a company manufacturing test and research equipment, six years developing and running community projects (including small scale renewables) and, most recently, six years in technical and commercial management in marine renewables.

Alex joined Tidal Generation Limited (now wholly owned by Alstom) in 2009 and took a lead role in the completion of their tripod foundation installation and grid connection at the European Marine Energy Centre, to enable the 500kW and 1MW turbine demonstration programmes to be run.

Alex is now responsible for all aspects of the technical and commercial interface with prospective customers including understanding of the sites, support for EIA and customer due diligence processes, technical tendering, contract definition, negotiation and closing sales. He also leads a team of site development engineers looking at site data, site modelling, environmental impact, product cost and cost targets and operation and maintenance strategy.

Alex represents the company at national and international conferences and is involved in lobbying for government support to the tidal energy sector both in the UK and Europe

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Charles Bodel

Charles Bodel holds a master in science from the French Grande Ecole "Ecole polytechnique" and "Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées" in mechanical engineering. He worked during 7 years in mechanical modelling for EDF R&D division, more especially in vibration control on components in EDF facilities (alternators, pipes, pumps...). In 2012, he moved as team manager of 26 engineers in environmental hydraulics. He started to represent EDF in French and European organizations regarding marine energies, such as France Energies Marines, Ocean Energy Europe. As EDF being administrator of the latter, he was proposed to part of the steering committee of the TP Ocean and of the technological part of the Ocean Energy Forum.

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Barry Carruthers

Barry is the Strategic Innovation Manager at ScottishPower Renewables, working within the Policy & Innovation Department. Barry’s remit covers innovative activities in Marine Energy, onshore and offshore wind, and emerging technologies. He has worked in all aspects of project development, from technology assessment and procurement, to project financing and sector strategy.

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Paddy O’Kane

Chief Executive Officer, Aquamarine Power

Paddy O'Kane leads Aquamarine Power’s senior management team and sits on the company’s board of directors as an executive director. He was appointed CEO in April 2015 and is also a member of the company's technical committee.

Paddy was originally appointed as Aquamarine Power's Chief Technical Officer in 2010. Prior to this he was Head of Engineering and Wind Resource Assessment at SSE Renewables, with responsibility for the technical design and specification of almost £3 billion of renewable projects.

Paddy started his career with Du Pont and subsequently held a number of senior engineering and consultancy posts.

He holds a first class honours degree and a PhD in electrical engineering from Queen's University, Belfast. His PhD analysed and quantified the system benefits of utilising sources of embedded generation within a national power system.

Paddy is a Chartered Engineer and a Member of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland.

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Conchúr Ó Brádaigh

Conchúr Ó Brádaigh is Professor of Energy Engineering at University College Cork.

He is also Director of the SFI-funded Marine Renewable Energy Ireland (MaREI) Centre and Beaufort at UCC.

He was previously a Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at NUI Galway.

He is a leading expert in fibre-reinforced composite materials, with 35 papers in refereed journals, 65 papers in conference proceedings, 5 articles and chapters in books and 15 invited international presentations and tutorials.

He holds a PhD from the University of Delaware (USA).

His research interests include manufacturing, testing and modelling of composite materials for renewable energy applications (wind and ocean energy), liquid moulding of thermoplastic composites using monomer systems, cryogenic properties and space applications and the development of medical orthopaedic products in advanced composite materials.

He has successfully supervised 11 PhD and 19 Masters research students.

He has a track record of innovation and commercialisation of research, having founded and grown 2 successful University spin-out companies: ÉireComposites and CTL. These companies currently employ over 75 people in Co. Galway, including 20 engineering graduates.

Conchúr was the recipient of the Inaugural Sir Bernard Crossland Medal for Engineering Innovation (awarded by Engineers Ireland in 2009) and has 4 patents granted.

His contract research awards amount to more than €16.5 million from a variety of National and European (Framework Programmes, Horizon 2020 and European Space Agency) sources.

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José Hernández Brito

Mr. José Hernández Brito holds a Ph. D. in Chemistry (1986) by the University of La Laguna, and has been a marine science researcher, supervisor for several thesis, and responsible for over twenty national and international projects. He has held several R & D management positions at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, such as Dean of the Faculty of Marine Science, Director of the Research Results Transfer Office (TTO), Director of the Scientific and Technological Park, and Research Vice-Rector. He has also held the positions of Director of the Canary Institute of Marine Science.

Since 2009, Dr. Hernánde-Brito is the Manager of the ICTS (Science and Technological Singular Infrastructure) PLOCAN (Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands) where he is in charge of developing infrastructures, services and projects. He is responsible for meeting objectives for PLOCAN’s operational, environmental, financial and commercial performance under the supervision of the Director.

Moreover, he is Director of the European project TROPOS and coordinator of European projects within PLOCAN, such as LEANWIND or OCEANERA-NET, associated with sustainable energies new developments and innovations. He also coordinates the project FIXO3, which are on the multidisciplinary observatory side of science.

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Pablo Ruiz-Minguela

Master degree in Industrial Engineering (1991) and Postgraduate studies in Distributed Energy Generation and Renewable Energy Systems at the University of Basque Country, Engineering and Telecommunications High Technical School, Spain. MSc in Advanced Manufacturing Technology (1992) at the University of Manchester, Institute of Science and Technology, UK (1992). MBA (2012) at the Business School ESEUNE, Spain.

He jointed ROBOTIKER in January 1993, now integrated in TECNALIA, where he has participated and managed over 30 research projects. He offers 21 years of experience in R&D in TECNALIA, 9 of them in Wave Energy, is author or co-author of more than 21 conference communications and 3 patents for marine energy. He is also member of the Steering Committee of the Technology and Innovation Platform for Ocean Energy (TP-Ocean) and has represented TECNALIA in various expert panels and working groups.

Since 2005 he has been working on Wave Energy and currently is Head of Wave Energy within the Marine Energy Area at TECNALIA. From 2008 to 2010 he also acted as the General Manager and Technical Director of OCEANTEC ENERGY, a spin-off created by TECNALIA and IBERDROLA to develop cost-effective technologies for marine energy conversion. At present, he is leading R&D activities in TECNALIA related to the development of technologies for wave energy both at national and international level.

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Pierre Ingmarsson

Project manager within renewable energy at SP Technical Research Institute. Supports ocean energy in Sweden through initiatives such as OffshoreVäst and the Maritime Cluster, Region Västra Götaland. Pierre holds a master degree in Engineering from Luleå University and been working 7 years with R&D within the automotive industry before he joined SP in 2013.

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Yann-Hervé De Roeck

Dr. Yann-Hervé De Roeck has been educated in France as civil engineer (Ecole Polytechnique, Ecole National des Ponts et Chaussées) and applied mathematician (PhD in numerical analysis, University Paris-Dauphine). In 1991, he joined Ifremer, the main French oceanographic research institute, contributing to many numerical modelling programs from composite materials for marine usage to geophysics and coastal oceanography. His experience comprises: setting up a system for coastal operational oceanography mixing data and modeling (Previmer, www.previmer.org ), a environmental monitoring program (Rebent, www.rebent.org ), contributing to data policy at the European level (member of MODEG, experts for EMODNET), shaping the project that conducted to the creation of France Energies Marines, a public-private research institute dedicated to Marine Renewables. Since March 2012, he is the Executive Director of France Energies Marines.

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Jochen Weilepp

Jochen Weilepp is a Professor for Energy Management at the University of Applied Sciences Biberach, Germany since Sept 2012. During this time he carried out several consulting projects for the Wave and Tidal sector. Moreover, since 2015 Jochen is a member of the Advisory Board of Schottel Hydro, the tidal energy spin-off of the German Schottel Group and since 2014 he is a strategic advisor to Sustainable Marine Energy Ltd., Isle of Wight, UK.

Between 2005 and 2012, Jochen has set up and headed the Ocean Energies division of Voith Hydro. In this role Jochen was Managing Director of Voith Hydro Ocean Current Technologies and non-executive director of Voith Hydro Wavegen. Moreover, since 2010 Jochen is elected board member and Vice President of Ocean Energy Europe, the European trade body of Ocean Energies in Brussels.

In 2004-2005, Jochen was Project Manager in the department of Corporate Strategy at Voith Holding. From 1999-2004: Jochen was a consultant and later-on Project Manager with The Boston Consulting Group in Munich. Jochen holds a PhD. in Physics and an MBA (INSEAD).