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.

Hywel Woolf – Project Manager, Costain
As a Chartered Environmentalist, Hywel has spent his career working with a number of organisations providing environmental consulting and management roles. Recently, Hywel has worked in close capacity with the South Wales Industrial Cluster’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge (IDC) Deployment Project, and partner organisations including Industry Wales, FLEXIS, Cardiff University, Welsh Government and the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales. Hywel also shares his experience through membership of the Advisory Board for the Future Generations Leadership Academy. Hywel brings practical and technical knowledge of cross sector decarbonisation, specific to industry and infrastructure.

David Jukes – Programme Director, Costain
David is a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Environmentalist, working in the role of Programme Director with Costain on major Infrastructure projects in the Energy & Decarbonisation sectors, including the role of Key Project Lead on the Resilience as a Service project.

David is also currently the Program Lead for the South Wales Industrial Cluster ISCF IDC Deployment Project. He holds a number of external positions, including: Advisory Board Member, Decarbonisation of Transport through Electrification (DTE Network+); Steering Board Member, HyCymru Wales Hydrogen Alliance; Policy Advisory Committee Member, UKCARES; Industry Advisory Group Member, Cardiff University School of Engineering.

David has a proven track record for delivering results through collaboration, guiding targeted plans and strategies with best-practice tools and techniques to improve performance at all levels through direct, open communication.

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.

Manuel Cortés Moreno – Decarbonisation Consultant, Costain
Manuel is involved with delivery of decarbonisation solutions across sectors, with specific focus on the Energy industry. Manuel’s degree in Chemical and Energy Engineering and Masters in Sustainable Energy Systems, coupled with multi-national industry experience, have provided significant expertise in infrastructure sustainability and appraisal activities such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and carbon management. Additional key areas of knowledge include fleet decarbonisation, hydrogen technologies and energy management. Manuel joins the RaaS project team to support engagement with the supply chain and exploration of the wider potential for the RaaS concept. He is also a member of the Future Leaders Group for the South Wales Industrial Cluster ISCF IDC Deployment Project.

Sarah Bowles – Stakeholder Relationships, Costain
Sarah joined Costain over 15 years ago, following her MBA from Cardiff Business School. She has subsequently worked on complex projects across the highways, nuclear, rail, defence and now energy sectors, enhancing her ability to communicate complex data in clear, concise ways. Sarah is experienced in leading organisational development, and is passionate about Social Value and extending the benefits of infrastructure improvements throughout the local community. For RaaS, Sarah will support ongoing stakeholder engagement activities, ensuring that the project understands and benefits from perspectives across the range of stakeholders associated with the RaaS concept. Sarah will also bring her experience to development of the potential market design for RaaS, embedding Project 13 principles and associated considerations to enhance the longer-term and wider application of Resilience as a Service.

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 brings extensive project management skills to lead E.ON’s participation in the collaboration, providing the technical delivery of the battery system and developing the investor business case.

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.

Inigo Berazaluce Minondo – Innovation Project Lead, E.ON
Inigo began working at E.ON in 2013, initially as a technical consultant on Energy Systems and then on the development of the new Virtual Power Plant software platform which provides ancillary services to TSOs in Germany and UK. The system was successfully developed and implemented and now controls more than 1000 assets offering more than 500MW of pre-qualified flexibility. Inigo currently leads a number of projects within E.ON Group Innovation. Prior to joining E.ON, Inigo worked for 6 years in Acciona Energia leading the Innovation group for solar and biomass power plants, and for 10 years in air conditioners and heat pump product development at Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH.

Daniel Radburn – Commercial Manager, E.ON
Daniel is a CIMA qualified accountant who has worked at E.ON for 20 years, providing expertise in various roles during that time. As Commercial Manager in E.ON’s Solutions business, he is responsible for the development of commercial business cases for the installation and operation of energy solutions such as CHP, Solar PV and Battery Storage on behalf of Industrial and Retail customers.

Daniel is leading development of E.ON’s Investor Business Case for RaaS, including a risk matrix for investment and Heads of Terms for participation in the market.

Robert Davies – Electrical Project Engineer, E.ON
Robert studied Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Manchester, receiving a Master’s degree in 2017 with his thesis on designing and building a battery- supercapacitor energy storage system for electric-vehicles. He completed a graduate scheme at E.ON UK and now works for E.ON Central Innovation as an electrical project engineer where he works on battery storage projects and the development of an ANM/ HEMS solution. With the RaaS project he is focused on scheme design, including component specification and control system requirements.

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 is responsible for identifying BESS design requirements and RaaS operational restrictions through extensive grid studies, particularly related to protection systems and black start operation.

John Martin – Product Manager, E.ON
John is a Product Manager at E.ON, with a key role in battery, solar and demand side response proposals and market opportunities. He focuses on incorporating both commercial and technical approach into a successful proposition. John has held a diverse set of customer, regulatory and project roles over a nearly 20-year career in the utilities sector working for National Grid, npower and E.ON. His priorities are centred on safety and system compliance, reflecting both customer and stakeholder perspectives.