ERA Vision - our speakers and panellists
Keynote speakers
Robert Llewellyn, 'Fully Charged'
Robert Llewellyn is an English actor, playwright, comedian and writer. He is best known for his portrayal of the mechanoid Kryten in the cult BBC 2 comedy, Red Dwarf; and for his role as presenter on Channel 4’s Scrapheap Challenge. He also hosted the long running online series Carpool from his electric car. Robert is a frequent speaker at science and technology events, actively promoting electric cars and renewable technologies. His website and YouTube channel, Fully Charged, is a platform for discussion around the issues relating to the future of energy. At ERA Vision 2018, Robert will be providing a fascinating insight into the future of road transport as a result of new technological developments.

Steve Holliday - incoming President of the Energy Institute
Steve Holliday is the incoming President of the Energy Institute and former Chief Executive of National Grid plc. He is Chairman of Senvion, Deputy Chairman of Convatec and Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Crisis, the homeless charity. Currently Vice President of the Energy Institute, from 2019 Steve will become the next President. In addition, he volunteers his time as Vice Chairman of the Careers and Enterprise Company and Vice Chairman of Business in the Community. Steve is a Fellow of both the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Energy Institute.

Rob Saunders - Challenge Director: Prospering from the Energy Revolution
Rob Saunders leads the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund programme, ‘Prospering from the Energy Revolution’. The government has pledged to invest up to £102.5 million in industry and researchers to develop smart systems that can support the global move to renewable energy. Over the coming four years, this aims to prove the future business models and local approaches that will put energy users and consumers at the heart of a cleaner, cheaper and more resilient energy system. Prior to this role, Rob led the energy programme at Innovate UK for four years, during which Innovate UK supported hundreds of UK businesses, developed and launched the energy catalyst programme and set up two energy catapult centres; Offshore Renewable Energy in Glasgow & Blyth, and Energy Systems in Birmingham.

Seminar and main stage presenters
Professor Mike Stephenson, Director of the British Geological Survey
Mike Stephenson is Director of Science and Technology at the British Geological Survey. He has done research in the Middle East and Asia, including highlights in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. Mike also runs the Science Programme at BGS, the UK's national geoscience and data centre, in charge of 520 scientists and technologists. He has professorships at Nottingham and Leicester universities. He has published three books and over 90 peer-reviewed papers. His book ‘Shale gas and fracking: the science behind the controversy’ won an ‘honourable mention’ at the Association of American Publishers PROSE awards in Washington DC. The PROSE Awards ‘…annually recognize the very best in professional and scholarly publishing…’. His most recent book ‘Energy and Climate Change: An Introduction to Geological Controls, Interventions and Mitigations’ examines the Earth system science context of the formation and use of fossil fuel resources, and the implications for climate change.

Emma Bridge - Chief Executive, Community Energy England
Emma Bridge is the Chief Executive of Community Energy England, a not for profit organisation that represents and supports those committed to the community energy sector. Emma works with her Executive Team, Board of Directors and members to help create the conditions within which community energy can flourish. Prior to joining CEE, Emma was the General Manager of Sheffield Renewables, a community renewable energy group that installs solar PV on community buildings. In parallel to this she worked on two EU projects looking at renewable energy and green urban systems. She has also worked for both local and regional government on sustainable development policy. As well as having vital experience of setting up projects on the ground, Emma also sits on numerus advisory groups.

Wayne Bexton
Wayne Bexton is Head of Energy Services at Nottingham City Council and has worked in public sector energy and sustainability fields for over 12 years, having previously delivered sustainability advice in the private sector. Wayne has delivered numerous high profile, high value environmental projects and programmes for the public sector across the UK, receiving industry recognition along the way including the National Lottery Awards Environment Category Winner, Solar Power Portal Commercial Project of the Year and the Access Alliance Best Scheme Award. Wayne has UK and European advisory positions, whilst also Chairing the D2N2 Energy Board and leading the Local Capacity Support programme for the Midlands. Currently leading on Nottingham’s ambitious energy delivery programme, which has already included 11MW of installed capacity, and will continue to expand to meet a target of 20% of the City’s energy coming from renewable sources by 2020.

Professor Mark Gillott
Prof Mark Gillott has over 24 years’ experience in low carbon sustainable energy technologies and sustainable building design. He is the research and project manager for the multi-award winning Creative Energy Homes low/zero carbon housing project, which incorporates a low temperature heat network and an electricity micro-grid. Prof Gillott is a lead academic on the Innovate UK £6 million project SCENe and is project managing the £3 million UK Energy Research Accelerator Community Energy Demonstrator at the Trent Basin. Prof Gillott’s work is widely published and he has presented numerous papers relating to his research at national and international conferences. He has also presented his research work internationally and nationally through television/radio media and his work has been exhibited at the National Science Museum in London. Mark finally got his Blue Peter badge in 2011 for his appearance on a BBC Blue Peter climate change special on how to live more sustainably in our homes.

Professor Seamus Garvey
Seamus Garvey is Professor of Dynamics at University of Nottingham and his research covers gas turbine transmission systems and energy storage. Within the area of energy storage, his emphasis is on the integration of energy storage with renewable energy harvesting. He has written over 30 papers on various forms of thermo-mechanical energy storage and is/has-been involved in >£2.5M of funded research work in this topic ranging from compressed air energy storage to pumped-thermal storage and synchronous flywheels.

PhD presentations
Eve Wheeler Jones, University of Warwick
I am currently a PhD student working in the Electrochemical Engineering Group at WMG in the University of Warwick. My research aims to increase the energy stored in supercapacitors devices by using new nanostructured metal oxides as electrode materials. In 2017, I completed a Masters in Molecular Analytical Science where I undertook two research projects based upon energy materials; the first on passivating films on silicon for photovoltaics, the second on advanced diffraction analysis of nanostructured metal oxides. Before this, I completed a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Warwick; during this time, I undertook a summer internship with WMG where I developed electrodeposited anodes for sodium ion batteries. I am also the Athena Swan post graduate representative for WMG.

Filipe Rego, Ason University
I took my bachelor and master’s degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Lisbon, finishing in December of 2015. My Master thesis was about the thermal degradation of poplar wood chips through TGA and its behaviour in pyrolysis. During my academic formation I also participated in some courses in the area of bioenergy, for example on biorefineries and biochar, in Lisbon and in Madrid respectively. I am now undertaking a PhD at Aston University under the supervision of Dr Jiawei Wang and Dr Anthony Bridgwater. The title of the PhD is "Intermediate pyrolysis of biomass in a pilot scale continuous screw reactor" and it is part of a European project called GreenCarbon.

Daniel Gayton, Loughborough University
I started my PhD, entitled 'Developing next generation direct fuel cell using liquid fuels for building and automotive applications', at Loughborough University in the Chemical Engineering department in October 2016. My research involves the development and testing of palladium (Pd) nanoparticle catalysts using various supports and co-catalysts. The characterisation of said catalysts involves testing in a variety of alcohols such as ethanol, butanol and glycerol. Alcohols make an ideal liquid fuel due to their high energy output and stability. Most fuel cells with current technology use first generation fuels such as ethanol and methanol but investigations into second generation fuels such as butanol and glycerol are ongoing as they can offer a higher energy output.
