brendan winitana - Chairman, SEANZ

Brendan is an independent director and chair of SEANZ. With a background in governance, senior management and strategic planning, Brendan has held CEO and director roles in imaging solutions, IT and content management businesses as well as his own consulting practice specialising in industry and sector transformation and change and resulting new business models.

As an independent director, he serves on other boards. His passion lies with SEANZ and the outcomes it seeks based on the expected exponential industry development to help drive the low carbon economy.  

Brendan presents the new SEANZ view on stuff in the industry - its non-linear, wide-ranging and needs explanation.

Pete Grogan - Managing Director, Harmony Energy NZ

Pete is a commercial lawyer with over 14 years of business and legal experience. He has advised and worked for a broad range of companies across the UK energy sector including start-ups, hi-tech/high-growth companies and some of the country's largest energy providers.

Pete's project development experience includes over 5MWs of roof-top solar PV projects, over 500MWs of solar farm projects and over 1GW of battery energy storage projects (with 300MWs currently under construction in the UK).

Pete co-founded Harmony Energy in 2016 and in the last three years Harmony has closed deals with Tesla, FRV, TAG Energy, BayWa and Scottish and Southern Energy.

In November 2021 Harmony Energy successfully listed Harmony Energy Investment Trust plc on the London Stock Exchange, with a market capitalisation of £210m. Harmony remains privately owned by Pete and three other renewable energy entrepreneurs.

As a proud New Zealander, Pete is passionate about his home country and doing stuff right for today, tomorrow and the next day. As our keynote Pete discusses the views of a responsible utility scale PV developer including the good and bad, standards, community engagement, impacts on people, iwi, bio-diversity, environmental, processes, consents, funding, offtake… and how this rolls using the 140 MW Harmony solar farm as the example in development near Te Aroha in the Waikato.

Greg Hoskins - Standards and Technical Development, SEANZ

Principal and director of Hoskins Energy Systems, Greg is a practitioner of designing and installing solar PV and storage systems - grid connected and off-grid. With 35 years in the field, Greg is the industry’s technical go-to man. A master electrician, he has extensive history in electrical work and renewable energy system implementations in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. As a systems integrator, Greg is pragmatic with a heap of real-world expertise that is vital to define and maintain the right standards for the technologies and their implementation in New Zealand. Greg serves on other industry boards and is a SEANZ representative of the AUS NZ EL-042 Standards Committee - Renewable Energy Systems of Standards.

Cristiano Marantes - Chief Executive, Ara Ake

Dr Cristiano Marantes is a highly experienced energy sector executive with an extensive engineering background and an informed worldview on the potential of technologies and business opportunities that will likely emerge in a low emissions energy future. Personally, he brings to the position a life-long passion for enabling this future, through strong leadership, innovation and knowledge of new low emissions energy solutions.

Mike Casey - CEO, NZ Zero

Mike is CEO of NZ Zero (NZ0.com) a company that specialises in producing food without the use of any fossil fuels. Mike founded NZ Zero after successfully establishing Forest Lodge, a cherry orchard that he believes to be the first zero fossil fuel farm in the world (well in modern times anyway!). The first cherries were sold this year in Farro Fresh supermarkets in Auckland, and showed that consumers were willing to pay a 10-15% climate premium for their food.

NZ0 is now looking to covert other growers and farmers. We can change our behaviour in many ways to help the climate but one thing we cannot do is stop eating. New Zealand must become the most climate friendly food producer in the world to continue to have our edge in the international market. 

Al Yates - Director, Ecotricity NZ

Al has been involved in a number of startups in the telco, IT and tourism sectors including Brightpoint and Snowplanet. Over the last 20 years Al has been Managing Director of Wind Farm Group, an independent wind developer and over the last 9 years the CEO of carboNZero Certified electricity retailer Ecotricity. Al has served on the NZ Wind Energy Association and is a member of the EA Market Development and Advisory Group.  Al has been heavily involved in the promotion of electric vehicles, is on the board of ChargeNet and through Ecotricity is heavily involved in supporting the growth of solar generation.

Evie Trolove - Energy Futures Programme Manager, Orion Group

Evie is Energy Futures Programme Manager at Orion Group, a community-owned electricity distributor. Evie's expertise includes flexibility market development, energy system transition and electrification of transport. While recently based in the UK, Evie managed a portfolio of innovation projects focused on smart electric vehicle charging, vehicle-to-grid and automation of small-scale generation connections. Her ambition is to support a just transition to net-zero emissions through collaborative, customer-centric innovation in the energy sector.

Jenny van der Merwe - Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities, Renewable Energy Lead

Jenny is a public housing professional with extensive experience supporting change and innovation initiatives within Housing New Zealand and Kāinga Ora. A background in Industrial Engineering, Public Management and a passion for the environment have shaped Jenny’s approach to the development of the renewable energy programme at Kāinga Ora.  

Kyle Hall - Director, NZHIT, New Zealand School of Engineering, Energy & Infrastructure

Kyle has spent 25 years connected to the engineering industry in Taranaki. Starting as an apprentice Toolmaker/Machinist, he has have held various roles connected to the Food, Fibre and Manufacturing sectors. For the last 10 years, Kyle has been with the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (WITT) where he is the Director of NZIHT – New Zealand School of Engineering, Energy & Infrastructure.

As the needs of industry change, so to do the training requirements.  WITT understands the need to diversify their portfolio to serve the needs of an engineering and energy sector that is experiencing rapid growth and change. The solar PV industry is an example of that development. Kyle looks forward to working alongside their stakeholders and implement training, innovation, and excellence.

Kyle presents the new NZQA approved NZIHT Solar PV training regime -  a NZ first, supported collaboratively with and by SEANZ.

Shay Brazier - Technical Director, Revolve Energy

Shay Brazier is the Director and Founder of Revolve Energy. Shay's work in photovoltaics and DER spans 17 years. He has worked on a wide range of projects for business, governments and communities throughout New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and the United Kingdom. Shay's experience has been in both the generation and the demand side of energy (control and monitoring solutions) and focused on minimising energy related costs by designing solutions that work as part of a complete system. Shay is a member of the Flexforum, where he brings insight from a practical implementation and customer perspective to the group.

Richard Steer - Asset Strategy Manager, Wellington Elctricity

Richard Steer is the Asset Strategy Manager, at Wellington Electricity. Richard is leading the development of future distribution network requirements for Wellington. This includes modeling the impact of New Zealand Emissions Reduction Programme on network demand and distribution services, developing the investment programme to deliver the estimated doubling of peak demand electricity use and working out how to accommodate DER while maintaining a secure electricity supply. An important focus of Richards role includes how to incorporate flexibility services into Wellington Electricity’s demand management response. Richard has a degree in Electrical Engineering from Canterbury University. He has 17 years’ experience in a variety of engineering roles in the New Zealand electricity distribution industry.

Tim Francis - Principal and Director, Southern Solar & Automation

Principal and director of Southern Solar & Automation, Tim Francis has a 26 year background as an electrician, initially specialising in industrial control systems then spending the last 15 years in the Renewable Energy field as a designer / installer of both grid-connected and stand-alone PV & storage systems. Prior to moving to New Zealand in 2019 he was also engaged as a trainer in both subjects at both TAFE NSW and GSES Australia.

Tim has Advanced Diplomas in Electrical Engineering (Control) and Renewable Energy and held CEC Accreditation as a Designer and Installer for both grid-connected PV and stand-alone power systems with both micro-hydro and small wind endorsements.

Tim is the trainer appointed to deliver the PV training courses at WITT - Western Institute of Technology, NZIHT - New Zealand School of Engineering, Energy & Infrastructure, supported by SEANZ.

Jon Stone - Commercial Manager, Aurora Energy

Jon is responsible for implementing Aurora Energy’s pricing strategy to support the energy  future of our communities, as well as managing relationships with retailers and commercial partners. With a background in aviation network pricing,  Jon is determined to simplify distribution pricing for Otago customers and provide incentives for customers to embrace new technologies.

Christina Walker - Principal Planner, 4Sight Consulting Limited

Christina Walker is a Principal Planner at 4Sight and Manager of the company’s Hamilton office. She has over 10 years’ experience in resource management planning, both in local government and consultancy roles and a passion for sustainable development, with a proven track record in the consenting of large and complex projects across a range of industries. Since 2020, Christina has played a leading role in the preparation of resource consents for utility scale solar energy. Christina and her colleagues have obtained a consent, on behalf of Eastland Generation Limited, for a 5MW solar farm at Gisborne Airport.  She also managed and prepared a resource consent application for a 147MW solar farm at Te Aroha West. For the Te Aroha West site, Christina led inputs from a range of environmental specialists and guided the project through submission to the Environmental Protection Authority under the Covid-19 Recovery (Fast Track Consenting) Act 2020. The application is currently being assessed by an EPA panel.

Renato Bitac - Network Planning Manager, Aurora Energy

As the Network Planning Manager, I look after the development of the network incorporating network solutions with non-network solutions to create investment opportunities to meet the network and customers’ requirements. This includes preparing the network to embrace the expected growth of distributed energy resources and impact of electrification.  Further, I also oversee the procurement of flexibility services to defer capital investments.

Andrew Caseley - Chief Executive Officer, EECA

Andrew has been the Chief Executive at EECA since 2017. Previously he was the NZ Managing Director for MWH (now Stantec), a global engineering and environmental consultancy, and CEO of the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council for 13 years. Andrew has a commerce degree with an accounting major and is a Companion Member of the Institute of Professional Engineers.

Mark Ashby - Principal Planning and Policy Consultant, 4Sight Consulting Limited

Mark is 4Sight’s national sector lead for Renewable Energy, Manager of the company’s Wellington office, an RMA Planner with over 30 years’ experience, and an experienced hearings commissioner. He is a current director of the New Zealand Wind Energy Association (NZWEA) and obtained resource consent for Aotearoa’s first commercial wind farm (Haunui) in 1995. He has maintained a keen interest in renewable energy since that time. In 2004 Mark was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to enable study of other countries’ planning systems in relation to wind energy. With regard to 4Sight’s solar projects, he maintains an overview – helping to pull together skills across disciplines that include property, RMA planning, community and iwi engagement, ecology, landscape assessment, and contaminated land management. 4Sight Consulting is now part of SLR Consulting, a global leader in environmental and advisory solutions.

Terry Paddy - Managing Director, Cortexo

Terry spent the first 20 years of his career in the aviation sector after completing a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics at Canterbury University. In 2001 he started a software development company with a colleague that became Cortexo, specialising in remote monitoring and control in the electricity industry and in particular, the connection and control of distributed energy resources. In 2017 Terry was appointed to the Electricity Authorities Innovation and Participation Advisory Group (IPAG) which provides advice to the Authority board on the new innovation and business models in the electricity sector. His specific areas of interest are data privacy and security and in the wider use of distributed energy flexibility to drive our zero-carbon, 100% renewable future. In 2014 he was made a Fellow of the NZ Institute of Management and is a member of the Institute of Directors.