My role covers the regulatory aspects and interfaces of all the EirGrid Group’s activities. The licencing, regulatory and policy interfaces are complex, because we are electricity Transmission System and Market Operators for two seperate jurisdictions, working in conjunction with each other. Some parts of my work require me to ensure cross border consistency, for example updating the licensing arrangements that underpin the wholesale electricity market arrangements to implement the European Network Codes, while others require a focus on Northern Ireland issues. My day to day activities include:• Developing corporate positions on electricity related issues and drafting consultation responses;• Interacting with the regulatory authorities to convey these positions and to build company reputation;• Development of business cases for submission to the regulator;• Ensuring compliance with our licences and the wider statutory framework;• Supporting the processes for the setting of network tariffs and connection charges;• Preparing price control submissions;• Sharing knowledge across teams within the business to ensure consistency in approach;• Liaising with the Government Department;I was part of the team that successfully appealed SONI’s price control to the Competition and Markets Authority and am now working to implement these outcomes. Through this role I have gained an understanding of all aspects of electricity policy, the frameworks that implement it and the communication channels that are essential to ensure for successful delivery.

The Utility Regulator is responsible for regulating the electricity, gas, water and sewerage industries in Northern Ireland, promoting the short- and long-term interests of consumers. For two years I was responsible for regulating the system operator in Northern Ireland (SONI), including monitoring and ensuring license compliance, carrying out the price control and approving any exceptional items, setting annual tariffs, dealing with ongoing technical issues as they arose and managing a number of related projects. I am also worked on the NIE Transmission and Distribution Price Control; I have assessed their request for £900 million of capex over the next five year period. This included managing a team of consultants who have undertaken the technical assessments, benchmarking NIE’s performance and identifying appropriate methods of incentivisation. I am currently working on the referral of RP5 to the Competition Commission. I was also responsible for assessing capital expenditure requests by NIE and presenting them to the Utility Regulator Board for approval, including grid developments for renewable energy.

Based in its global headquarters in Belgium, I was responsible for all utilities procurement for its breweries in Western Europe (€100 million per year) along with oversight of energy procurement for all of its breweries around the world (€300 million per year over 120 sites in 29 countries). This included preparing budgets, monthly cost reporting and analysing variances. I also benchmarked utilities costs between sites and countries.AchievementsAnalysing wholesale energy markets, retail energy markets and regulated network charges for the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, to develop successfully a procurement strategy in line with the corporate risk management policy.Communicating this strategy to and obtaining support for it from senior executives, including the Chief Buying Officer, Vice Presidents, Corporate Treasury, Brewery Directors and Site Engineering Managers.Negotiating contracts with energy companies in the UK, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg that allowed us to implement our strategy at lowest cost.Monitoring wholesale commodity markets to identify appropriate times to fix the price of commodities to ensure that we achieved our cost targets while complying with the corporate risk management policy.Developing strong working relationships across the manufacturing and commercial arms of the business to ensure that the procurement strategy for Western Europe was understood and accepted.Understanding the energy procurement options available to each of the sites outside Western Europe to assess compliance with the corporate risk management policy and identify any opportunities to move away from full service fixed price contracts to variable price contracts where InBev absorbed some commodity price risk.Ongoing monthly monitoring of price and volume variances to identify threats and opportunities, reporting to the Western European Zone Board.

Selected and developed a multi-site multi-disciplinary team to design and implement a utilities monitoring system for three breweries across the UK. Staff were working on this project in parallel with their day jobs and resources were provided from existing budgets. Once completed, the web based system formed part of the daily routine of key staff on all three sites. Another achievement of this project was increased cross-site working at an operational level.In the Belfast Brewery I was responsible for:Utilities supply to production site and leading continuous improvement projects.Project management of capital projects, including preparation of business cases and contracts.Responsible for on-going maintenance activities across the brewery.

I first worked for Mott MacDonald as a student for my pre-university gap year in 1989, before they sponsored me through my degree. I subsequently was selected for their graduate training programme and qualified as Chartered Engineer in 1998. I worked as a consulting engineer for various public and private water providers in the UK.I assisted with preparation of Asset Management Plans, for water company price controls.I undertook strategic studies for capital investments and water supply/demand balance modelling.