Dermot Byrne was appointed Chief Executive of EirGrid in July 2005. Dermot has extensive senior management experience in the electricity industry in Ireland and abroad. From 1993 to 1997 he was Manager, Power System Operation in ESB National Grid. In the late 1990s he worked in senior roles within ESB customer services and power generation areas. In 2000 he was appointed as the first Head of ESB Networks. In his role as Chief Executive of EirGrid, Dermot has developed EirGrid into a group structure with responsibilities in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, comprising EirGrid TSO, System Operator Northern Ireland (SONI), and the Single Electricity Market Operator (SEMO). He is a Fellow of Engineers Ireland and he is also a distinguished member of the international electricity body CIGRE.

Tony Doherty is a national expert working on internal energy market issues for DG TREN in the European Commission. In addition to working on the Third Energy Package, he has been responsible for the development of retail energy markets across Member States and has established the Citizens' Energy Forum in London. Prior to this, he worked on the implementation of the Single Electricity Market. He has also been responsible for energy policy and legislation in relation to the gas sector for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) and been Economic Advisor on wholesale electricity trading arrangements for OFGEM in GB.

Viren Doshi, Senior Vice President with Booz & Company in London, has over 30 years experience in leading strategy-based transformations in energy and infrastructure related sectors. His work has included supporting large energy companies to define their investment portfolios given the uncertainty in the outlook on Future of Energy 2020 and beyond. He also leads the Global Energy and Utilities Practice for Booz where his teams have worked on developing scenarios for the low carbon world and the role of renewable energy - particularly with respect to policies that stimulate innovation and industrial growth.

John FitzGerald is one of Ireland’s leading economists and Research Professor with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) where he is responsible for ESRI’s Energy Policy Research Centre. He was a member of the Northern Ireland Authority for Energy Regulation from 2003 to 2006.

Tom Kerr is a Senior Energy Analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA) Secretariat in Paris. He manages the IEA energy technology roadmaps project, which is developing a series of global roadmaps to accelerate the most important low-carbon energy technologies that are needed to address climate change. He authored the IEA publications the CCS Roadmap (2009), CO2 Capture and Storage: A Key Carbon Abatement Option (2008) and Legal Aspects of CO2 Storage -- Updates and Recommendations (2007). Prior to this position, Tom was the Chief of the Energy Supply & Industry Branch in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Air & Radiation in Washington, DC.

Professor J. Owen Lewis is Chief Executive Officer of Sustainable Energy Ireland. Professor Lewis is a long time proponent of sustainable energy practice in the built environment and was founder of the UCD Energy Research Group in 1975. Professor Lewis was elected Dean of Engineering and Architecture at UCD in 2001, a post he held for four years before becoming Principal of the UCD College of Engineering, Mathematical and Physical Sciences. More recently, Professor Lewis has been Bórd na Móna's Director for Innovation and R&D.

David Lowe has over twenty years experience in stockbroking. He was Head of Research at Goodbody Stockbrokers until 2000, and was responsible for coverage of utilities such as Viridian and eircom. He is actively involved in the infrastructure sector, where Goodbody has developed a unique offering, providing both advice and risk funding for projects involving sophisticated financial structures. David has a background in mechanical engineering.

Pierce Martin’s senior management experience spans energy regulation, strategic planning, operations, marketing and asset management systems implementation. Having held positions of Board Member, CEO, Director in a diverse range of companies influencing national policy, he is currently director and strategic advisor to a number of start-up companies. A fellow and chartered engineer of Engineers Ireland, Pierce regularly chairs the annual Energy Ireland conference.

Alex McLean is Head of the Projects & Energy Group in the leading all-island law firm, Arthur Cox. He has more than fifteen years specialist energy expertise in Europe, the Middle East and Australia and has been centrally involved in almost every major development in the energy sector in Ireland and Northern Ireland in recent years. Prior to joining Arthur Cox, Alex spent six years in the Projects Group of a leading Australian law firm in Sydney and was heavily involved in the liberalisation of the Australian electricity sector.

Peter O’Brien is a partner in the Projects, Energy and Construction Group at Matheson Ormsby Prentice. His main focus is on projects and infrastructure related work with a special emphasis on energy related transactions (covering all aspects of electricity, gas and renewables). Peter advises developers, banks and operators on major scale projects and project financing from public private partnerships to power and oil and gas field developments. Prior to joining Matheson Ormsby Prentice in 2004, Peter worked for several years with Clifford Chance LLP in London, Dubai and Hong Kong.

Iain Osborne has been Chief Executive since June 2006 of the Northern Ireland Authority for Utility Regulation (NIAUR) which regulates energy and water in Northern Ireland. He joined NIAUR from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition, where he worked on gas markets since 2004. He has also worked for Ofgem, the GB energy regulator, the UK’s Department of Trade and Industry, pan- European telecommunications and internet companies, and the consultancy McKinsey & Company. He is a Fellow of the Energy Institute and lives in Belfast.

Eamon Ryan, TD was appointed Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources in the new government following the 2007 general election. He was first elected to the Dáil in 2002 and represents the Dublin South constituency for the Green Party. Before taking up his ministerial post, he had been Green Party spokesperson on transport, enterprise, trade and employment, communications, marine and natural resources.

Phil Skipper has worked within the international energy sector for over 15 years establishing new infrastructures for liberalised markets and more recently for the mass deployment of smart solutions for metering and the grid. Now leading the Siemens eCar programme for the UK and Ireland as well as Scandinavia, Holland and the Baltic states, Phil’s experience of the eCar application, the impact on the grid and the drivers for change in terms of customer behaviour and attitudes provides a unique insight into the challenges and benefits of the eCar ecosystem.

Jonathan Stern is Director of Gas Research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies; Honorary Professor at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum & Mineral Law & Policy, University of Dundee; and Visiting Professor at Imperial College’s Centre for Environmental Policy in London. Over the past two decades Professor Stern has become an internationally known speaker and author on natural gas and security issues in Europe, the former Soviet Union and Asia. He is the author of several books and many shorter works on energy and natural gas issues in: the UK, Europe (western and eastern), the former Soviet Union and Asia.

Michael G. Tutty is Chairman of the Commission for Energy Regulation. His lead responsibilities include the regulation of all electricity and gas network infrastructure including the east-west interconnector. He is responsible for the Commission’s activities on renewable and sustainable energy, research and development and customer care. He is also responsible for the CER’s involvement with CEER and ERGEG. In the past, he worked in the Department of Finance and the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg. Born in Dublin, he holds Masters Degrees in Economic Science from UCD and in Strategic Management in the Public Sector from Trinity College.

Richard Vernon is Energy Principal with SLR Consulting Ireland. In this role, he has been involved recently with a number of major assignments, including ‘An Assessment of the Potential for the Geological Storage of CO2 for the Island of Ireland’ (2008) and ‘Common Approach to Natural Gas Storage and LNG on an All Island Basis’ (2007). Prior to joining SLR, he worked as an independent consultant undertaking a wide range of energy related projects in Ireland, the UK and further afield. Before moving to Ireland in 2000, Richard was for ten years, Director of External Affairs for Phillips Petroleum Company’s Europe-Africa Division based in the UK.

John Williams is a Principal Consultant with Pöyry Energy Consulting. Since joining Pöyry in 2001 John has worked extensively in the Irish gas market. In particular, he has been a key adviser to Bord Gáis where he has been involved in market opening projects, the introduction of the entry/exit regime and more recently in the development of short-term and interruptible capacity products. John is also an expert on capacity arrangements in the GB gas market and gas transportation issues in general.