From Local Experiments to Lasting Markets: The Future of DSO Flexibility

As Managing & Technical Director of the OpenADR Alliance, Rolf Bienert oversees all aspects of the Alliance, including strategy, technical developments, and certification programs. Rolf has been an active member and manager of many industry organisations for over 25 years, driving the development of new technologies with a specific focus on standardisation, certification, and interoperability. Prior to the OpenADR Alliance, Rolf was the Technical Manager for a Telecom and Global Competence Center for emerging communication protocols at a global testing firm, Executive Directors for several industry alliances, and VP North America for an international test house.

Torsten Knop spent his whole career in the utility industry. After a brief period working for an industry association he joined the RWE Group (today E.ON) in 1999. Here he was mostly focused on public affairs issues concerning transmission and distribution grids. With the start of formal regulation in Germany in 2005 he moved to regulatory affairs and is currently responsible for European Regulation at E.ON SE. He is an economist by qualification.

Guro Grøtterud is the Director of Regulatory Affairs and a Senior Project Manager at NODES. Guro has been working in the European Energy sector since 2006, with main focus on regulating electricity markets. Prior to joining NODES in 2023, she held positions in the National Regulatory Authorities for Energy in France and Norway, and in EDF. She also worked as a national expert in ACER in 2021-2022. Guro is part of SmartEN's Board of Directors and chairs the Markets & Networks Committee. Guro holds Engineering degrees (MSc) from Ecole Polytechnique (2004) and Ecole des Mines de Paris (ParisTech, 2005

Cristina Corchero is co-founder and CTO of Bamboo Energy and Head of the Energy Systems Analytics Group at IREC. She holds a M.Sc. and PhD in Statistics and Operations Research from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (2011). Her experience and research focuses on applying advanced optimisation tools to electricity markets, smart grid, smart communities, electric vehicle and hybrid systems. Cristina led and participated in several European, national, regional and industrial projects on energy efficiency and new technologies system integration. She has registered and patented different software solutions to optimize novel energy system integration and management. She leads the Vehicle-Grid-Integration tasks at the Hybrid and Electrical Vehicle Technology and Collaboration Programme from the International Energy Agency since 2015. She has participated in several scientific publications, national and international conferences, workshops and seminars.

Michael Villa is Executive Director of smartEn - Smart Energy Europe, the European business association integrating the decentralized solutions of the clean energy transition. He joined smartEn in 2018 when he led the advocacy efforts as Head of Policy. Before joining smartEn, he worked as Senior Consultant to provide specific advocacy support to clients both in the EU and Middle East in the energy sector. Among others, he led the Secretariat of a cross-sectorial business organisation, the European Alliance to Save Energy (EU-ASE), and supported Knauf Insulation as Public Affairs Adviser in Italy. Michael worked also in the European Parliament for a Cypriot MEP and at the Embassy of Italy in Copenhagen during the UN Climate Change Conference COP15. Michael has a Master at the Institute for European Studies in Brussels and a bachelor degree from the Catholic University of Milan.

Kris Kessels has been a researcher at VITO/EnergyVille since 2008 and is part of the Grids and Energy Markets team. She specializes in project management and serves as a senior expert in projects and studies on the design of energy and flexibility markets, mechanisms to unlock flexibility, and the associated regulatory frameworks.

Elise van Ginkel started out her career in the energy sector at consulting firm Magnus Energy, where she supported TSOs and NEMOs with the EU electricity market integration, through a variety of projects in CWE, Core and Nordic CCR. Since 2022, she has been involved in the field of congestion management. First as policy advisor at the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and later on as senior business strategy consultant at EDSN (central data hub of Dutch SOs) and GOPACS.  Elise currently fulfills the position of manager Strategic Development at GOPACS, where she is works with a team of policy advisors on the long-term strategy of GOPACS in light of stakeholders needs and national/European flexibility legislation.

Jasper Kroondijk has started out his career in the energy sector as management trainee at the Dutch DSO Alliander. Since 2018, he has been fully focused on developing the field of congestion management and flexibility markets. Jasper has been involved with GOPACS since January 2019 and has fulfilled several key positions, including developing the cooperation and connection with EPEX SPOT and leading the implementation of the GOPACS Cross Platform Algorithm. Jasper currently fulfills the position of manager Business Development at GOPACS, in which he and his team are responsible for strategy, initiating and leading key projects and maximizing liquidity at GOPACS.