Meet the Team

Sarah Rigby – Innovation Project Manager, SSEN
Sarah is an Innovation Project Manager at SSEN, providing technical and commercial direction to a range of projects over her 8 years with the Future Networks team. Building on a degree in Engineering and master’s in Environmental Technology & Energy Policy, Sarah has held diverse roles across asset strategy and economic aspects of regulated utilities, with experience in the development and implementation of new approaches to managing and operating networks. Her focus on low carbon, sustainable energy technologies has allowed her to provide voluntary support to local community energy schemes outside her professional roles.

Maciej Fila – Project Engineer, SSEN
Maciej is a Project Engineer in SSEN’s Future Networks team, leading technical and modelling aspects of innovation projects for the past 5 years. In his current role he provides analytical and design expertise to the RaaS project, is engaged with EV strategy development, and supports the transition of project learning into business as usual operation. Maciej holds a PhD from Brunel University for his work in voltage control in distribution networks with distributed generation, and has 15 years of experience in the electricity industry with the focus on innovation in protection, voltage control, network modelling, technical losses and power quality.

Rob Middleton – Lead Consultant, Costain
Rob brings more than 10 years’ experience of innovation in the electricity industry to Costain and the RaaS Project. In that time, Rob has delivered and led smart system and distributed energy projects incorporating smart homes, local energy systems and innovation strategy. Rob uses his sector experience to ensure Costain’s experts in project management, supply chain development and complex projects have necessary knowledge of the electricity sector to deliver Costain’s work and the project outcomes.

Rob was closely involved in developing the RaaS proposal throughout 2019, and brings a strategic mindset, creative thinking and proposition development experience to delivery of the project. This will ensure the outcomes build on the technical demonstration to deliver a competitive market that maximises the benefits and reduces the costs of RaaS to customers.

David Richardson – Decarbonisation Solutions Director, Costain
David is an APM Chartered Project Specialist with over 30 years’ experience of managing, developing, and delivering projects across the energy, nuclear, oil and gas markets, through consultancy and concept development to engineering design and operation. His role in decarbonisation solutions has seen involvement with multiple grid connection schemes at various voltage levels, and through energy storage projects he has been directly involved in creating energy resilience for the UK market place. He is an active steering board member and supporter of RaaS with a passion to see the service proven improving security of supply for communities across the UK.

Jonathan Woodthorpe – Product Manager, E.ON
Jonathan has been with E.ON and its predecessor companies for 25+ years, working extensively in the energy services and solutions sector in both established and emerging markets. His experience in product development, strategy and transformation enables him to bring focus and leadership to complex projects. With a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and a career in sustainable technology markets, Jonathan leads the E.ON RaaS team.

Iain McLeod – Electrical Engineer, E.ON
Iain is an Electrical Engineer in E.ON’s City Energy Solutions team with over 30 years’ experience as an engineer in Utilities, Building Services, Oil & Gas, and Process Control industries. He provides electrical technical services to E.ON’s solutions business with a focus on heat networks and energy innovation, and is supporting delivery of the RaaS trial scheme. Iain has an MSc in Renewable Energy Systems Technologies, and his work in E.ON supports their decarbonisation goal and the delivery of new solutions for energy system operation.

Dan Jerwood – Battery and Flexibility Project Lead, E.ON
Dan joined E.ON in August 2021, and brings an analytical and commercial background to the RaaS project to support development of the business case for RaaS and commercial optimisation of the proposed solution within the wider market environment. Dan has worked within the UK energy industry for over 23 years’, building extensive experience in the development and delivery of DSR solutions with companies such as npower, Engie and Yorkshire Electricity.

Sofia Amina Rahman – Product Manager, E.ON
During her time at university Sofia worked for Robert Bosch’s Thermotechnology business in Germany & the UK, looking after the sales strategy for I&C customers for over 3 years. Sofia started working for E.ON’s Flexibility business in early 2018 after completing a Master’s degree in Strategy & Finance at the University of Giessen.

As part of the Product Development team she previously worked on E.ON’s Vehicle-to- Grid project and the transformation of the Flexibility business within the E.ON and Innogy merger.

Within the RaaS project, Sofia is responsible for E.ON’s Flexibility workstream which will define product design options for RaaS. Building on this, commercial optimisation of the RaaS asset across a range of flexibility markets will provide a forecast of flexibility revenues to feed into the investor business case assessment.

Sven Heise – Project Manager, E.ON
Sven Heise is a project manager for E.ON Business Solutions, with over 23 years of experience in the utilities sector in Germany and across Europe. In recent years, Sven has been responsible for a wide variety of innovation projects in the areas of customer journey digitization and e-mobility. Within the RaaS project, Sven has overseen E.ON’s participation in the collaborative technical development and detailed design of the BESS and EMS for the trial scheme.

Tilman Wippenbeck – Principal Engineer, Westnetz GmbH
on behalf of E.ON
Tilman has over 10 years of professional experience in distribution system studies which he applies to innovation projects. He specialises in the analysis of system fault behaviour and network interactions with distributed energy resources and grid forming converters (GFC). As a member of a team of specialists at the distribution system operator Westnetz, he performs analysis of complex outages and undertakes concept development, feasibility studies, and requirement engineering for current and future operational scenarios, such as intentional islanding or GFC dominated systems.

Through experience gained from in-depth modelling and simulations, he seeks to ensure the implementation of efficient, long-term designs and planning decisions for DSOs. Within RaaS, Tilman identified and evaluated detailed BESS design requirements and RaaS operational restrictions through extensive grid studies, particularly related to protection systems and black start operation.

Luca Casali – Project Manager, Loccioni
Luca is a project manager at Loccioni, where he oversees numerous storage and microgrid projects. He holds a degree in computer science and brings over a decade of experience in automation from his previous work on various Loccioni projects, before transitioning to lead initiatives in the Energy sector.

In collaboration with the Loccioni project engineer, Luca coordinates management and technical activities collaborating with the RaaS project partners, and handles the economic and administrative aspects of Loccioni’s involvement with the project.

Andrea Cascavilla – Project Engineer, Loccioni
Andrea is a Project Engineer in Loccioni’s Energy team, coordinating the technical aspects of energy storage and microgrid projects across Europe. Building on a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Energy and Nuclear Engineering, along with 5 years of experience in electrical and automation fields, Andrea has guided teams of electrical, mechanical, and software designers towards the commissioning of systems for European utility companies. His role supports all phases of a project, from commercial to final commissioning, and always focused on techno-economic efficiency, sustainability, and low environmental impact as fundamental approaches. Andrea has worked as a production engineer for automotive components, broadening his expertise to include quality control.

For RaaS, Andrea oversees the technical aspects of Loccioni’s design and construction of this interesting and innovative Battery Energy Storage System.