Grid Forum 2022

At the 8th Swissgrid Grid Forum, renowned speakers discussed the subject of «Smart solutions for sustainability, security of supply and grid stability in Switzerland – with or without the EU?» under the moderation of Urs Gredig.

The illustrator «Small Shark» has summed up the 8th Swissgrid Grid Forum in an impressive image:

Summary of the 8th Swissgrid Grid Forum
Summary of the 8th Swissgrid Grid Forum

Conclusion

The electricity sector is making an important contribution to the decarbonisation of society. Looking ahead to this winter, signs are increasingly emerging of a conflict between sustainability, economic efficiency and security of supply. A secure supply of electricity is absolutely essential for the economy and society.

At the same time, we must remember that the Swiss electricity grid is part of the European interconnected grid, connected via 41 lines, and that the relationship between Switzerland and Europe remains tense. Representatives of the electricity sector, science and business discussed solutions that meet the various challenges facing the industry. The participants received new impetus from international experts and European neighbours from Estonia, Italy and Austria. There was a consensus regarding the fact that a self-sufficient supply of electricity for Switzerland remains an illusion.

Digitalisation is also an important topic in the electricity sector. Digitalisation and process automation not only increase the efficiency and safety of grid operations and maintenance, but can also optimise grid planning. However, digitalisation must always go hand in hand with the expansion of cyber security. The implementation of the Network Code Cyber Security will support this.

Everyone was in agreement that without grid security, there is no security of supply. The energy transition will not succeed without a high-performance transmission grid. The «Strategic Grid 2040» can only be successfully implemented in cooperation with partners. Planning has already started.

The concluding panel discussion debated the importance of skilled workers in the industry: without ambitious employees who are prepared to break new ground, promote innovations and actively help shape them, there can be no progress. The aim is to strengthen diversity in teams and in cooperation. This is how the electricity sector can be constructively successful, both now and in the future, so that together we can complete the energy transition – and hopefully avoid an energy crisis!


Recording of the event

Part 1: Swissgrid Grid Forum 2022
Part 2: Swissgrid Grid Forum 2022

Speakers

Doris Barnert (CFO, Swissgrid)

Doris Barnert has a degree in architecture from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich with a Master‘s degree in Corporate Finance and an Executive MBA from the University of St.Gallen (HSG). After her first positions in the architecture sector, she joined the infrastructure division of SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) in 2001, where she held various management and project leadership positions. In 2006, she was appointed Head of Finances for the western Swiss route in the infrastructure division and was responsible for the financial steering and management of all business units for the route in Romandie. In December 2008, she joined Solothurner Spitäler AG as director of Finances (CFO) and member of the Executive Board. In this position, she built up, expanded and made a significant impact on the finance department, constantly pushing for further development. Since April 2017 Doris Barnert is a member of the Executive Board and Head of Corporate Services / CFO of Swissgrid.

Cyrill Brunschwiler (Managing Director, Compass Security)

In his early career, Cyrill Brunschwiler developed cyber training ranges and created puzzles for hacking-lab.com. Since 2005, he has supported over a hundred projects by providing independent expertise in penetration testing, red teaming, emergency assistance and digital forensics. Cyrill has been Managing Director of Compass Security Schweiz AG since 2014. He has an MSc in Information Security from the renowned Royal Holloway University in London and is a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences of Eastern Switzerland.

Dr. Renuka Chatterjee (Vice President Operations, Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Dr. Renuka Chatterjee leads operations at the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), overseeing functions that ensure efficient and reliable grid operations. She leads all aspects of system operations, operational planning and market operations, including market settlements. Dr. Chatterjee is well-noted for her vision on grid operations of the future that defines how the industry needs to transform the control room operations in response to the energy portfolio evolution. She is recognized as an international leader for her contributions to grid operations through CIGRE, a global organization committed to the creation and sharing of power systems expertise. Dr. Chatterjee joined MISO in 2000 and has served in leadership positions within operations & markets and transmission planning. She was instrumental in the establishment and implementation of MISO's reliability & market services.

Gerhard Christiner (Member of the Board, APG)

Dipl. Ing. Mag. (FH) Gerhard Christiner acquired his degree in electrical engineering, major in power systems and electricity economics at the University of Technology Graz as well as in Marketing and Sales at the University of Applied Sciences of Vienna Economic Chamber. After working for Verbundplan GmbH and Energie Control Austria GmbH Gerhard Christiner joined Verbund Austrian Power Grid AG in 2002 and was head of the department for Operational Management until 2006. Thereafter he became the head of the department «Asset Management». Since 01.01.2012 he is member of the management board (CTO) at Austrian Power Grid AG. Furthermore, Gerhard Christiner is member of several committees in Austria and/or abroad.

Maurice Dierick (Head of Market, Swissgrid)

Maurice Dierick is a mechanical engineer, who started his professional career in 1991 with E. I. Du Pont de Nemours S.A. in France. He then moved to General Electric Plastics in Germany. Between 1998 and 2004, he supervised various projects in different businesses within the scope of the liberalisation of the energy market. From 2001 on, after the completion of the first phase of unbundling, he focused his attention on the structuring of asset management organisation, first for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young in the Netherlands and as of 2004 as a consultant to various energy supply companies in Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland and Australia. In Switzerland, he was also involved in the market liberalisation in 2008. Maurice Dierick joined Swissgrid in February 2015. Since June 2016 he is a member of the Executive Board, initially as Head of Grid and since January 2019 as Head of Market.

Dr. Michèle Etienne (Partner, Innopool)

Dr. Michèle Etienne has been active in the field of strategy consulting and executive search for over 20 years as a founding partner of Innopool AG, which is active in the healthcare, expert organisations and public institutions sectors. She holds a doctorate in Economics from the University of Bern and trained as a mediator at Bern University of Applied Sciences. In 2007, she co-founded GetDiversity, a company that assists organisations in filling strategic boards. In addition, she has served as President and member of various boards of directors since 2004. Dr. Etienne is convinced of the added value of diverse governance bodies and advocates for balanced diversity in all aspects.

Prof. Dr. Dr. Matthias Finger (Professor Emeritus, EPFL)

Matthias Finger is a Professor Emeritus at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne, Switzerland (EPFL). He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Geneva. He has been an Assistant Professor at Syracuse University (New York), an Associate Professor at Columbia University (New York), a Professor of Management of Public Enterprises at the Swiss Federal Institute of Public Administration, and between 2002 and 2020 the Swiss Post Chair in Management of Network Industries at EPFL. Since 2010, he is a part-time professor at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy, where he is deputy director of the Florence School of Regulation’s Transport Area (FSR-T). Since 2017, he is also a professor at the Faculty of Management at Istanbul Technical University (ITÜ), directing the Istanbul Center for Regulation (IC4R).

Guido Guida (Head of International Institutional Affairs, Terna)

Terna is the Italian electricity Transmission System Operator (TSO). It manages the Italian high voltage transmission grid and has 74,700 km of HV lines and 26 interconnection lines with foreign countries. Terna is playing a central role in transforming the electricity market towards the use of eco-compatible sources, guaranteeing a secure, sustainable and efficient supply to households and businesses.

Adrian Häsler (Head of Grid Infrastructure, Swissgrid)

Adrian Häsler is a graduate electrical engineer (dipl. Elektroingenieur HTL) and has an Executive MBA from the University of St.Gallen. He started his career at the Kraftwerke Oberhasli AG (KWO) as the Head of Operational Management. In 2000, he became the Head of the Secondary Systems department at Nordostschweizerische Kraftwerke AG (NOK). In this position, he was responsible for the design, project development and realisation of substation projects in the area of security, control, measurement and monitoring. From 2007 onwards, Häsler was a member of the Hydroenergy Division management at Axpo Power AG and Head of the Technical Support business unit, which was responsible for the planning, construction and maintenance of hydroelectric plants. Adrian Häsler joined Swissgrid in April 2017. On 3 April 2019, he was appointed Member of the Executive Board and Head of Grid Infrastructure.

Prof. Dr. Gabriela Hug (Professor, ETH Zurich)

Prof. Gabriela Hug obtained a Master’s degree in Information Technology and Electrical Engineering in 2004 and a PhD in Energy Transmission in 2008, both from ETH Zurich. In addition, she was awarded a degree in Higher Education Teaching in 2007, also from ETH Zurich. After her doctoral studies, she spent a year working for Hydro One in Toronto, Canada, as part of its Special Studies Group, then from 2009 to 2015 she was an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA. She has been a professor at the Power Systems Laboratory of ETH Zurich since 2015. Her research focuses on control and optimisation in electric power systems.

Dr. Antje Kanngiesser (CEO, Alpiq)

Antje Kanngiesser holds a doctorate in Law and an executive Master of Business Administration from IMD Lausanne and worked as a lawyer in Berlin between 2001 and 2007. She then began her career in the energy sector and held various management positions at the Alpiq Group and Energie Ouest Suisse (EOS) until 2014. In 2014, Antje Kanngiesser joined BKW as Head of the General Secretariat and Legal Services. Just one year later, she became Head of Group Controlling and was a member of the extended Executive Board. In 2017, she assumed responsibility for the Group Markets & Services business area of the BKW Group and was a member of the Group Executive Board between 2019 and 2021. Antje Kanngiesser has been Chief Executive Officer of the Alpiq Group since March 2021.

René Kerkmeester (CEO, Equigy)

René Kerkmeester was CEO at APX, Europe’s premier provider of power exchange and clearing services for the wholesale market, operating transparent platforms in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Belgium. René served at the Board of Directors of Powernext, a regulated investment firm based in Paris which designs and operates state-of-the-art electronic trading platforms for spot and derivatives markets in the European energy sector. Also, he was Director at BritNed Development Ltd, a joint Venture between National Grid. René has worked for energy companies in Belgium, England, Germany and the Netherlands and discusses on the major players and energy providers in the space. He holds a Master in Business. René Kerkmeester is CEO of Equigy, a European joint venture aiming to decarbonise the European energy flexibility markets by unlocking distributed smaller flexibility assets such as home batteries, heat pumps and electric vehicles.

Peter Kummer (Member of the Management Board, SBB)

Peter Kummer holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration and Computer Science (University of Bern). Before joining SBB, Peter Kummer was Head of Enterprise Architecture & IT Strategy at the Swiss insurance company Die Mobiliar. Before that, he worked for various companies as an IT architect, project manager and consultant. Peter Kummer joined Swiss Federal Railway SBB in 2007 as Chief IT Architect and was appointed CIO and member of the SBB Executive Board in 2009. Peter Kummer has been Head of the Infrastructure Division since August 2020.

Prof. Mark O'Malley (Professor, Global Power Systems)

Professor Mark O’Malley is the lead of ESIG, Pillar 1 Lead in the Global Power System core team, including the Energy Systems Integration Group (ESIG), Imperial College London, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence for Integrated Energy Systems, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE), IEEE, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), the Danish Technical University (DTU), VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, and ASEAN Center for Energy. He is actively developing the consortium and will be engaged in implementation of technical work as well as coordinating specific pillars.

Prof. Dr. Mario Paolone (Professor, EPFL)

Mario Paolone received the M.Sc. (Hons.) and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Bologna, Italy, in 1998 and 2002. In 2005, he was an Assistant Professor in power systems with the University of Bologna, where he was with the Power Systems Laboratory until 2011. Since 2011, he has been with the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, where he is currently a Full Professor and the Chair of the Distributed Electrical Systems Laboratory. His research interests focus on power systems with particular reference to real-time monitoring and operational aspects, power system protections, dynamics and transients. Dr. Paolone has authored or co-authored over 300 papers published in mainstream journals and international conferences in the area of energy and power systems that received numerous awards including the IEEE EMC Technical Achievement Award, two IEEE Transactions on EMC best paper awards, the IEEE Power System Dynamic Performance Committee’s prize paper award and the Basil Papadias best paper award at the 2013 IEEE PowerTech. Dr. Paolone was the founder Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier journal Sustainable Energy, Grids and Networks.

Christian Petit (CEO, Romande Energie)

Born in 1963, Christian Petit is an economist and graduate of ESSEC Paris. After a distinguished career in the telecommunications sector, Christian Petit joined the Swisscom Group in 2000. As a member of Swisscom’s Executive Board, he was responsible for the private customer division before becoming CEO of Swisscom Enterprise Customers. Over these years, Swisscom has created a market-leading multi-channel customer service, led major mergers and established itself as a customer experience expert. Christian Petit is a leader with great strategic, relational and interpersonal skills and can rely on his exper-tise in telecoms, IT and digital. He will take over as CEO of Romande Energie in June 2019 to support its digital transformation and market positioning. The Group’s strategy is based on a vision comprising the three CSR pillars: environment, society and economy.

Prof. Dr. Sonia Seneviratne (Professor, ETH Zürich)

Sonia I. Seneviratne is Professor of Land-Climate Dynamics at ETH Zurich. She was born in Lausanne (Switzerland) in 1974 and studied at the University of Lausanne (Biology, 1992–1995), ETH Zurich (Envi-ronmental Physics, 1995–1999), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, visiting student, 1998–1999). She completed an MSc in Environmental Physics at ETH (1995) and a PhD in Climate Re-search at ETH’s Institute for Atmosphere and Climate (2003). She was then a postdoctoral researcher at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (2003–2004). In 2005 she returned to ETH as a senior assistant. She was elected assistant professor at ETH in 2007. She was elected associate professor in 2013 and full professor in 2016. Prof. Seneviratne was a lead author of several reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in particular the Special Report on 1.5°C Global Warming and the 6th Assessment Report. She is one of the most cited climate scientists.

Dr. Joram Schito (Grid Management Specialist, Netzmanagement, Energie 360°)

Dr. Joram Schito did his doctorate at the Chair of Geoinformation Engineering at ETH Zurich. In the pro-cess, he investigated new methods and developed a tool (3D DSS) to make the planning of high-voltage power lines more realistic. He studied Geography at the University of Zurich, received an award for his Master’s thesis, holds two teaching diplomas and has years of experience teaching at secondary and ter-tiary level. He is particularly interested in topics from the natural sciences, energy and digitalisation. Dr. Joram Schito is a grid management specialist at Energie 360° and a lecturer at ETH Zurich in the field of Spatial Data Science. As asset manager, he plans how Energie 360°’s infrastructure network must be expanded and maintained to ensure reliability of supply, safe operation and transition to sustainable forms of energy. To this end, he is developing digital tools to model the grid of the future as accurately as possible.

Taavi Veskimägi (CEO, Elering)

Taavi Veskimägi has been a member of the Estonian parliament for two consecutive terms. During 2003-2005 he was the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Estonia. He held the position of Vice President of the Parliament from 2005 to 2006 and until 2007 he was the co-chairman of the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union, the main centre-right political party in Estonia. In 2017 Taavi Veskimägi was bestowed with the Estonian state decoration the Order of the White Star as a developer of the energy sector. He is the founder and the Chairman of the Board of the Estonian Defence Industry Association and the member of the board of the Estonian Employers’ Confederation. Taavi Veskimägi is the Chairman of the Board of the Estonian electricity and gas transmission system operator Elering AS since the company’s set-up as an independent TSO in 2009. He is also a member of the Board of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E).

Prof. Dr. Rolf Wüstenhagen (Professor, University of St. Gallen)

Dr. Rolf Wüstenhagen is Professor of Renewable Energy Management at the University of St. Gallen. In 2003, he left one of Europe’s leading energy venture capital funds to pursue an academic career. Visiting professorships and research stays at UBC Vancouver, Copenhagen Business School, National University Singapore and Tel Aviv University. 2008–2011: One of the lead authors of the IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy and Climate Change. 2011–2015: Member of the Advisory Board of Federal Councillor Doris Leuthard for Energy Strategy 2050. He is the academic director of the Managing Climate Solutions (MaCS-HSG) certificate programme at the University of St. Gallen and of the CAS Renewable Energy Management (REM-HSG) continuing education programme.

Konrad Zöschg (Head of Technology, Swissgrid)

Konrad Zöschg is a telecommunications engineer (HTL) who is also a trained industrial engineer (FH) and certified IT manager. He began his professional career in 2000 as a customer application engineer at Acterna in Zurich. After holding various positions at Acterna and its successor company, Nexus Telecom AG, he joined Unique (Flughafen Zürich AG) as a senior communication architect in 2005. In 2008, Konrad Zöschg became Head of Communication Engineering at Flughafen Zürich AG, and in 2010 he took on the role of Head of the Aviation Competence Center. After being made Head of ICT/CIO in 2014, he was responsible for the entire IT department of Flughafen Zürich AG, a critical infrastructure in a very complex environment with one of the broadest ICT portfolios in Switzerland. In 2020, he received the Swiss CIO Award as best CIO of the year. Konrad Zöschg was appointed CIO of Swissgrid on 1 August 2021.

Yves Zumwald (CEO, Swissgrid)

Yves Zumwald is an electrical engineer who launched his long career in the energy industry in 1993 at Energie Ouest Suisse (EOS). After a spell as National Electrical Design Manager at Orange Communications, he returned to EOS Holding in 2002 when he took on responsibility for grid usage and access. Following this, he headed the Infrastructure department as a member of the Executive Board at EOS Réseau from 2005. Yves Zumwald took over management of the sales department and joined the Executive Board at the Romande Energie group in September 2009. In this capacity he made a significant contribution to the development and optimisation of the department while guaranteeing outstanding quality of supply. Yves Zumwald joined Swissgrid in January 2014 as a member of the Executive Board and Head of Grid. In March 2016 the Board of Directors has appointed him as CEO of Swissgrid.


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