Engineering Challenges in the Hydrogen Economy

Keith Owen: Head of Systems Development and Energy Strategy, Northern Gas Networks

Keith has led and supports a variety of energy research programmes such as the NGN H21 programme and the Cadent / NGN HyDeploy project. He also leads the development of the NGN InTEGReL facility, a collaboration between Industry, Academia and wider stakeholders to create a whole energy systems research and development centre, which aims to drive out the benefits of energy sector coupling and accelerate pathways to net-zero.

Keith is the chair of the Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers Hydrogen Committee, seeking to revise all UK gas industry standards to support the transition to 100% hydrogen.

Richard O’Brien: Global Hydrogen Applications Manager, Renewable Hydrogen, Howden Group Ltd

Richard is a process engineer working with Howden as the Global Hydrogen Applications Manager. He is responsible for shaping the strategy for Howden in the Hydrogen market. Prior to joining Howden, Richard spent 10 years working with Atkins/SNC-Lavalin in various design roles and was the Lead Process Engineer for Atkins on the Hynet project.

Jeppe Grue: Technical Director, Green Fuels & Thermal Power, COWI

Jeppe Grue is one of Denmark's leading specialists on power-to-x and has more than 20 years' experience in the energy sector. He is Technical Director with responsibility of new energy technologies, e.g. electrolysis, power-to-x and carbon capture. He is project manager and technical lead on several power-to-x and carbon-capture projects. He has worked as process engineer and chief specialist on increased operational efficiency of power plants, biomass for heat and power generation, carbon capture, biomass and coal co-firing, heat pumps and process optimisation of industrial processes.

Abrar Bajwa: HRS Asset Manager, ITM Power

Abrar Bajwa is a Chartered Chemical Engineer and business graduate from London School of Business and Finance with two decades of International experience in the hydrogen, Ammonia and LNG industry. Currently working as Asset Manager at ITM Motive, actively shaping the green hydrogen refuelling station infrastructure development in the UK. Abrar has worked very closely with the UK Department of Transport to enable green hydrogen to qualify for Renewable Transport Fuel Certificates (RTFCs) that is a much – needed incentive to accelerate hydrogen mobility in the UK.

Lloyd Mitchell: Hydrogen Engineering Lead, National Grid

Lloyd joined National Grid in 2016 as pipelines engineer and quickly identified the opportunity for gas transmission to facilitate hydrogen transportation. He developed and led National Grid’s first hydrogen innovation project and has since led many more covering metallurgy, safety, separation and competencies. Lloyd is now Hydrogen Engineering Lead on FutureGrid, National Grid’s major hydrogen demonstration and testing programme, and represents National Grid on a number of national and international working groups.

Sikander Mahmood: HyDeploy Project Manager, Cadent Gas Ltd

Sikander Mahmood is a Mechanical Engineer and Project Manager who joined Cadent to be part of the transition to net-zero. He spent time working in operational roles including on the front line with emergency response and within Cadent’s Operate and Maintain team, looking after Cathodic protection.  Following this he moved across to the future of gas team to settle into his current position within the team setting the strategy for the business as a project manager for HyDeploy, Cadent’s leading hydrogen blending project.

Bill David: Professor of Energy Materials Chemistry, University of Oxford

Bill David is Professor of Energy Materials Chemistry in the University of Oxford, STFC Senior Fellow at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and a Fellow of the Royal Society. His interests centre of renewable and sustainable electrochemical energy storage and chemical energy storage and transportation. His focus in these two areas have transitioned, respectively,  from lithium-ion to sodium-ion batteries and from hydrogen to ammonia. He is part of a spinout venture, announced at COP26, that focuses on hard-to-abate energy sectors such as maritime and aviation. He is part of a spinout venture, announced at COP26, that is tackling the green transition for hard-to-abate energy sectors such as maritime and aviation.

Luke Sperrin: CTO, Co-Founder and Director, H2GO Power

Luke is the co-founder and CTO of H2GO Power, an award-winning fast-growing hydrogen storage systems and software company based in London. Luke oversees the development low pressure material-based hydrogen storage hardware and integration control technology. Luke holds an M.Sc. and carried out his PhD studentship in Chemistry at the University of Cambridge building over 11 years of experience in hydrogen and fuel cells. Since the founding of the company, Luke has overseen the prototype development and a series of technical feasibility plans for the technology and deployment readiness for a wide range of applications and markets.

Sean Crespin: Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Strategy Lead, HORIBA MIRA

Over fifteen years of experience working in the hydrogen and fuel cell industry, with over five of these years spent living in Japan developing PEM fuel cell technologies for automotive and stationary applications.

Simon Garlick: Low Carbon Technology Engineer, SSE Thermal

Simon is a Chartered Chemical Engineer and graduate from Manchester Business School, with over a decade of experience with SSE Thermal, and two decades in the process industry. He has led the technical development and engineering definition for a wide range of power generation projects, most recently developments for low-carbon power plants with carbon capture and hydrogen technologies.

Mike Muldoon: Head of Business Development UK&I, Alstom

Mike has worked in the rail industry since 1989 starting his career designing trains for the UK, Europe and Asia.  He moved into project roles running a number of rolling stock and signalling projects for Alstom in London before becoming Tenders Director for Alstom UK&I in 2010. Early in 2017 he took on his current role, in which he is responsible for leading and overseeing the innovation, business development and sales activities of Alstom in the UK and Ireland, with the specific additional remit to promote and apply Alstom’s hydrogen train technology in the UK market.

Benoît Poulet: OEM Technical Interface Manager, Hydrogen, Shell

Benoît Poulet, as part of Shell Hydrogen Mobility teams, leads the technical collaborations targeting the standardisation of advanced Hydrogen refuelling systems for Heavy-Duty vehicles. Based in Hamburg, Germany, he sits in different consortiums describing the technical opportunities for high-speed gaseous hydrogen refuelling. Previously, Benoît was successfully leading Formula 1 Fuels development programs for more than 14 years in France and Germany before bringing his passion and dedication to the Hydrogen sector in 2021.

Paul Needley: Managing Director, Enertek International

Paul Needley is an experienced Managing Director and Chartered Engineer with a proven record of building a company based on strong values, reliability and loyalty to clients, employees and the gas, oil and renewable appliance industry. Paul is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He joined Enertek in 1987 after working in engineering research and development for a major gas appliance manufacturer and completing professional level qualifications in both engineering and business. Initially employed as a Research Engineer, then Project Manager and Joint Managing Director following a Management Buy Out in 1997. He is now sole Managing Director following the retirement of his business partner, Stephen Taylor.

Paul Turner: Managing Director, CMB Revolve Technologies

Paul Turner is the Managing Director for CMB Revolve Technologies, developing low carbon and emissions compliant technologies as part of CMB, a diverse shipping and logistics group. Paul has 35 years’ experience in automotive R&D, and has led the development of key Hydrogen, Electric and Hybrid systems for applications in automotive, marine, rail and military products, in addition to low carbon power generation in stationary and mobile environments.

Amanda Lyne: Managing Director, ULEMCo Ltd

Amanda has nearly 20 years’ experience in the hydrogen industry, having previously founded fuel cell company ACAL Energy and through her consultancy business Burgundy Gold Ltd, is a specialist in the commercialisation of clean tech.  She founded ULEMCo in 2014 to commercialise globally unique UK capability in hydrogen technology to convert commercial vehicles (from LGV to HGV and specialist utility vehicles like refuse trucks, gritter and sweepers) to run on hydrogen, either using the company’s technology for hydrogen dual fuel or applying their know-how and experience to developing zero emission engine vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell integration. She is also currently Vice-Chair of UKFCA, and a member of the Liverpool City Region’s Clean Growth board.

Neil Kermode: Managing Director, European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) Ltd