Beyond Feasibility: Capturing the Energy Transition’s Hydrogen Opportunity Seminar Speakers

Joanne Allday

Strategic Business Development Manager, Port of Crommarty

Joanne Allday is Strategic Business Development Manager at the Port of Cromarty Firth; the largest port in the Highlands. This Trust Port has invested over £50m in new infrastructure; successfully positioning itself as a leading renewable energy hub. The Cromarty Firth has a proven track record in marshalling large offshore wind work scopes (foundations, turbines and floating wind structures) and is in prime position to capitalise on the 10GW of offshore wind projects due to be awarded in the ScotWind leasing round in 2021.

Port of Cromarty Firth (PoCF) also recently announced the North of Scotland Hydrogen Programme Masterplan with the ambition for the Cromarty Firth to build on its success as the leading marshalling location for offshore wind projects, adding manufacturing and assembly facilities and a green hydrogen production plant. With extensive available land and regional demand for clean hydrogen, this could easily scale up to multi-GW of electrolysis capacity, and the green hydrogen produced at PoCF can then be used locally, for instance in whisky distilleries, and/or exported to wider markets.

Malcolm Arthur

Net Zero Policy Manager, National Grid

Malcolm has over 29 years of experience in transmission, covering both power and gas. He began his career in electricity transmission operations and moved across to gas in 2010. Malcolm has recently moved to a new role, Net Zero Policy Manager.

Previous to his current role, Malcolm was the Future of Heat Programme Manager, working across gas and electricity. Between, 2014 and 2019, Malcolm was on secondment with ENTSOG based in Brussels. In addition to ENTSOG, Malcolm has had secondments in the USA and with the UK Government.

Judith Balfour

Programme Manager, First Group

Jude Balfour manages the introduction of low carbon vehicle technology and their associated infrastructure into First Bus across the UK. She specialises in the hydrogen and electric vehicle technology and the change strategies required to ensure the vehicles and their technology are appropriately accepted and implemented. Jude joined First Group in 2013 on their Senior Management Training Scheme.”

Barry Carruthers

Hydrogen Director, Scottish Power

Barry directs ScottishPower’s activities in hydrogen across the UK and Ireland, as part of a global Hydrogen Division within the Iberdrola Group. This focuses on the production of green hydrogen as a complementary method of decarbonisation, alongside electrification solutions.
His previous roles include Head of Corporate Innovation, Sustainability and Quality which led strategic activities in the decarbonisation of transport, heat and other emerging technologies, as well as corporate initiatives aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This followed several years in ScottishPower Renewables where Barry led activities in marine energy and wind innovations across the sector.

Richard Kemp-Harper

Strategy Director, Arcola Energy

Richard has extensive experience in the development and implementation of innovation strategies at national and sector levels, including leading the UK funding programmes for hydrogen and fuel cells for InnovateUK. He brings knowledge and connections in both transport and energy sectors and leads on business and partnership development across all areas of our work. He has a Chemistry degree and D.Phil from Oxford University in new techniques for medical imaging and is a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Claire Mack

Chief Executive, Scottish Renewables

Claire has been Chief Executive of Scottish Renewables, the representative voice of Scotland’s renewable energy industry, since October 2017. She is responsible for leading the organisation’s work to grow Scotland’s renewables sector and sustain its position at the forefront of the global clean energy industry.

Claire is a member of the First Minister’s Energy Advisory Board and the Renewable Energy Strategic Leadership Group, co-chaired by Scotland’s Energy Minister. She is also co-chair of the Scottish Government Marine Energy Industry Group.

Claire is a member of SSEN’s Network for Net Zero Stakeholder Group and a member of the Centre for Work-Based Learning in Scotland Advisory Group. She was recently awarded a STELAR award for executive leadership from the University of Strathclyde.

Before joining Scottish Renewables, Claire was Director of Policy and Place at the Scottish Council for Development and Industry. She has previously worked in various roles at Ofcom in Scotland, focusing on economic regulation of telecoms, radio spectrum and the mail market while also looking at developing digital participation of individuals and businesses.

Prior to this Claire worked in retail and the construction industry as well as on regulation of regional broadcasting in the Borders an

Nick Sharpe

Director of Communications and Strategy, Scottish Renewables

Nick Sharpe is Scottish Renewables’ Director of Communications. His work involves overseeing Scottish Renewables’ media and public affairs work and liaising between the organisation’s member companies, the media and other stakeholders to promote positive news about the sector to diverse audiences.

A former journalist, Nick trained on the South Wales Echo then spent seven years at the Sun, latterly as Chief Reporter.

He then spent a year at Weber Shandwick, one of the world’s largest public relations consultancies.

At Scottish Renewables he’s also responsible for aspects of marketing and all the organisation’s social media.

Susi Wiseman

Energy Integrator and Hydrogen Technical Manager, Pale Blue Dot

Susi is the Energy Integrator and Hydrogen Technical Manager who has a PhD in Hydrogen production and experience in running her own carbon capture technology company. Susi has 20 years of international experience in management, technology development, pharmaceutical and in the energy industry.

Prior to joining PBD, Susi worked as project manager at the Oil and Gas Technology Centre in the Decommissioning Solution Centre. She was with Repsol Sinopec Resources (UK), working on the Buchan Alpha decommissioning project, leading a multidisciplinary team during the early to late stages of capital projects, managing budgets and project schedules as well as external studies and compliance with the company’s project delivery system. She has been directly involved in leading exploration development project and operations improvement project for a number of assets while working for Xodus Group, Performance Improvements and BP. During her PhD, she developed hydrogen / synthesis gas production systems and also carbon capture membrane systems, which resulted the filing of two worldwide patents as inventor.