Ocean Energy Forum - Environment & Consenting Committee

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Phil Gilmour

Phil Gilmour is Head of Marine Scotland's Marine/Offshore Renewable Energy Branch. The Branch is responsible for the promotion of Offshore Wind, Wave and Tidal Energy Development in Scottish Waters. To promote sectoral breakthrough the Branch has developed a toolbox of measures to facilitate sustainable development. The measures include Sectoral Marine Plans, Regional Locational Guidance, Scenario Mapping and Master planning. In addition we have put in place Communication and Science Strategies. Under our Science Strategy we have put in place a programme of research and strategic monitoring. We have and are developing a suite of Guidance to aid developers and others understand our consenting policies and the processes followed by Consenting one stop shop

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Dr. Anne Marie O’Hagan
 

Dr Annie Marie O'Hagan has over 15 years of experience in coastal and marine research and is currently a Senior Research Fellow in the MaREI Centre, University College Cork (Ireland). Her present research focuses on the law, policy and environmental aspects of ocean energy development. Dr. O’Hagan qualified in environmental science before undertaking a Ph.D. on the legal framework for coastal management in Ireland. She subsequently completed a degree in law whilst working full-time on Law of the Sea projects in the National University of Ireland, Galway. In 2009, Dr. O’Hagan took up a position under the prestigious Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)-funded, Charles Parsons Energy Research Award, a government initiative designed to build capacity in key research areas in University College Cork. Her work since then has focused on legal aspects of ocean energy, planning and management systems for deployment of offshore energy devices and environmental effects of ocean energy. She is involved in a number of multidisciplinary projects including those focused on aquaculture, spatial planning, environmental assessment and risk-based consenting for offshore energy. Dr. O’Hagan is a recognised expert on national and European coastal and marine legislation and policy and represents MaREI on a number of working groups including IEA-OES Annex IV as Irish representative, the European Commission’s Ocean Energy Forum Environment and Consenting Steering Committee and the national (all-Ireland) Marine Renewables Industry Association (MRIA). She is a former member of the ICES Working Group on Marine Renewable Energy and its predecessor the Study Group on the Environmental Impacts of Wave and Tidal Energy.

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David Pratt

David Pratt

David Pratt is Offshore Wind and Marine Renewables Planner at Marine Scotland, the Directorate of the Scottish Government with responsibility for the management of Scotland’s Seas. During his time with the Scottish Government, he has specialised in environmental assessment and marine development planning. David currently manages the development of Sectoral Marine Plans for Offshore Wind, Wave and Tidal Energy in Scottish Waters in addition to economic development planning initiatives in support of the offshore renewable energy. A Geographer by background, David holds post-graduate degrees in Energy & Environmental Management as well as Environmental Law. He is a Member of the Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment and also a Chartered Environmentalist.

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Frank Fortune
 

Frank Fortune is a Technical Director within Royal HaskoningDHV's licensing and consents team, based in Scotland. Frank is a marine biologist and environmental consultant, with over 22 years of experience research, regulatory and commercial experience, including Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), marine survey, marine environmental monitoring, oil spill response, Coastal Zone Management (CZM), and public consultation. He has been active in the Ocean Energy sector since 2004, when he began work consenting the world’s first commercial tidal turbine, SeaGen, Strangford Lough for Marine Current turbines. Since then he has helped consent over 60MW of Ocean Energy projects including:

• SeaGen, Strangford Lough (1.4MW) – Marine Current Turbines (MCT);
• Sound of Islay tidal array (10MW) – Scottish Power Renewables (SPR) – both original consent in 2011 and revised consent in 2014; 
• Skerries tidal array (10MW) – Marine Current Turbines – agreement of consent conditions and monitoring;
• Lewis wave farm (10MW) – Aquamarine Power;
• Perpetuus Tidal Energy Centre (30MW) – PTEC Ltd.

Frank has worked in a number of countries in Europe and more widely in the world, including Bahrain, Oman, UAE, Indonesia and the Caribbean. In addition to Ocean Energy projects, he has managed and worked on a broad range of projects including oil and gas decommissioning, port and harbour developments (including dredging works), onshore wind and offshore wind, major marine reclamation projects, coastal management and the development and provision of technical advice to government and statutory agencies.

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Ian Hutchinson

Ian Hutchison

Since joining Aquatera in 2007, Ian has acted as the Consents Manager and Licence Agent for a number of deployments at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC). This involved the production of a number of Environmental Assessments, HRAs, Decommissioning Plans and Environmental Mitigation and Monitoring Plans, requiring consultation and negotiation with regulators, agencies and stakeholders. As the Consents Manager, Ian was responsible for the implementation and delivery of the EMMPs and discharge of consent conditions.

Now a Director at Aquatera, he leads the Company’s input into a number of strategic initiatives focussed on better understanding, managing risk and reducing uncertainty around the potential impacts of wave and tidal energy projects on the marine environment. This has included recent work for the Scottish Government and The Crown Estate in the UK as well as international bodies such as the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Ian is currently engaged in a number of EIAs and HRAs for proposed demonstration and commercial scale wave and tidal developments within the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters (PFOW) Strategic Area, often involving the development of bespoke solutions and regular consultation with regulators, advisors and other key stakeholders. Ian currently sits on the European Commission’s Ocean Energy Environment and Consenting Workstream Steering Group and is the Secretariat Project Manager for the UK’s Offshore Renewables Joint Industry Programme (ORJIP) for Ocean Energy.

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Lucy Greenhill

Lucy Greenhill

Current: Research Fellow in Marine Planning and Renewable Energy (Scottish Association for Marine Science)

Currently undertaking Fellowship to address issues of governance in relation to marine activities and sustainability. Primarily developing research into marine planning as a framework for governance to address sustainability in the development of maritime sectors, exploring the integration of marine planning with existing governance mechanisms, its relationship to policy making, sector planning and project licensing, the feedback loops and role of key actors in this process (industry, Governments, NGOs, academia, civil society, etc.).

Funded research projects include EU FP7 MERIKA (Marine Energy Research Innovation and Knowledge Accelerator) (2014 – 17); EU HORIZON 2020 AQUASPACE (Ecosystem Approach to Marine Spatial Planning and Aquaculture) (2014 – 18); EU FP7 TIDES (Tidal Demonstration for Energy Scheme) (2012 – 2017) Other activities include:

• Convener of the Marine Planning and Governance Forum at MASTS (Marine Alliance of Science and Technology for Scotland) http://www.masts.ac.uk/research/research-forums/marine-planning-forum/)], bringing together the academic community to support development of knowledge and transfer to support marine planning authorities and stakeholders.
• Delivering specialist consultancy advice through SAMS Research Services Ltd [ http://www.srsl.com/] , including on-going work with the Commonwealth Secretariat supporting the Government of the Seychelles in implementing the ‘Blue Economy’.
• Lecturing / teaching on policy, planning and management of marine activities. Past: Renewable Energy Services Manager (SAMS Research Services Ltd) Assisting development of SAMS Research Services Ltd, primarily expansion of EIA and consenting services to renewable energy developers. Working with scientists to develop advice on key topics e.g. encounter risk of marine mammals and tidal turbines and entanglement of marine megafauna with wave energy devices, to develop understanding and assessment of risk, appropriate for the needs of regulators and consultees. Project management of relevant contracts, interface with clients/regulators/scientific community to deliver effective evidence-based advice.

Past: Offshore Industries Advisor, Joint Nature Conservation Committee, UK Advisor to Government, industry and stakeholders on marine planning and offshore energy developments from policy level to project (EIA/AA), focussing on offshore renewables. Primary role in strategic engagement to promote information exchange, enabling stakeholders to better manage environmental risk through planning and consenting processes. Working with Marine Scotland, DECC, Defra, MMO, Crown Estate, industry bodies, and UK conservation agencies, etc., to facilitate understanding of risks and prioritise actions to ease planning and licensing processes.

Past: Oil Spill Response Specialist, Oil Spill Response Ltd (OSRL), Southampton, UK

• Member of an on-call international response team, managing spill projects, providing environmental support to response operations.
• Oil spill contingency planning, including modelling and sensitivity mapping. • Environmental Management System (EMS) implementation (ISO 14001).
• Networking with stakeholders to advocate high environmental standards through the Global Response Network for oil spill response.
• Specialist focus as cold weather team member developing effective response strategies for polar conditions.
• Training non-specialist industry personnel in immediate response.
• General technical support and maintenance of response equipment.

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Ir. Peter Scheijgrond, M.Eng, M.Phil

director MET-Support

www.MET-support.com
 
Peter Scheijgrond is one of the ambassadors for the international ocean energy sector having worked in this field for nearly 20 years and bringing cohesion and cooperation in the ‘energy from water’ sector. He is one of the founding board members of the Dutch Energy from Water Association (EWA) and an acting observer to the Implementing Agreement on Ocean Energy Systems of the International Energy Agency (IEA-OES). He currently chairs the IEC TC-114 Dutch mirror committee on the development of new standards for marine energy convertors. Although his primary expertise lies in the development of tidal stream, tidal barrage and wave energy projects, he has been involved in hydropower, OTEC, aquatic biomass and Salinity Gradient projects and studies as well.

Through his own company MET-support (Marine Energy Technologies support), he currently works for Bluewater Energy Services on the development of a floating structure for tidal turbines, for Tidal Testing Centre (TTC) on site development and permitting, and he carries out the secretariat for the EIP Action Group on Energy from Water Works.

He holds combined engineering degrees from the University of Glasgow & Glasgow School of Art, from Strathclyde University and University of Applied Sciences Groningen. Previously with Ecofys, over a period of 12 years he developed and demonstrated the Wave Rotor technology. As part of a spin-out company OceanMill, the Wave Rotor technology and rights were sold to offshore contractor IHC. 
 
 

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Jose Luis Villate

Jose Luis Villate received a B.S. degree in physics in 1991 and a M.Sc. degree in advanced manufacturing technologies in 1992 both from the University of the Basque Country, Spain. From 1992 until 2010, he was with Robotiker working on topics related to power electronics and digital control systems for the integration of Renewable Energy Sources into the grid.

In 2011, Robotiker and other research centres merged into TECNALIA, the biggest private research organisation in Spain, where Mr. Villate is currently the Director of the Marine Energy department. He is working on several R&D projects concerning ocean energy and offshore wind with both private and public funding, including several European projects.

Between 1998 and 2000, he was a lecturer of industrial control with the Engineering School of Deusto University. Since 2008, he coordinates and lectures the marine energy module of a Master in Renewable Energy organized by the Spanish National Research Council.

Mr Villate is the Spanish member and chairman of the OES (a Technology Initiative on Ocean Energy Systems of the International Energy Agency). He is member of the Scientific Committee of ICOE (International Conference on Ocean Energy) and chaired ICOE2010. He chairs the Spanish standardisation Committee on Marine Energy and is a member of the International Technical Committee TC114. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the European Ocean Energy Association. He participates in several advisory groups of European projects, is member of one of the Steering Groups of the Ocean Energy Forum and is the Spanish representative in the Executive Committee of the Ocean Energy Joint Programme of the European Energy Research Alliance. He is author or co-author of more than 40 papers and conference communications in national and international forums. He is the holder of four patents related to renewable energy.

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Eugene Nixon

Eugene Nixon is an environmental scientist and spatial planner with over 30 years’ experience in marine related issues.  He has worked in developing and implementing marine environmental and food quality monitoring programmes as well as advising on the licensing and regulation of various marine activities.  At an international level he has worked with the Regional Seas Commission OSPAR and the marine science organisation ICES.  Currently involved in the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and developing Marine Spatial Planning in Ireland.

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Maria Olsson

As a program manager at the Swedish Energy Agency, Maria oversees several national R&D programs and international collaborations. She holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from Lund University, with a focus on renewable energy sources. For the time being she is responsible for the Swedish participation in OCEANERA-NET and IEA OES.