Floating Solar Power: Cost Savings & Reliability - How to Prevent Your Business Case from Failing

Dr. Eerenstein holds a PhD in Materials Science. Between 2003-2006 she worked as a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge (UK), working on combined electrical and magnetic data storage devices. This work was published in Nature, Science and Nature Materials. She was program Coordinator Solar Applications at the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (2006-2016), where she worked on new applications of solar panels such as building integration. She is now owner of Renergize Consultancy and general manager of EasyFix Solar, a company focussing on innovative mounting structures for solar panels. Renergize Consultancy offers advice and services to companies working on renewable energy innovations. Renergize Consultancy is overall project coordinator of the Dutch project Sunbiose, a large national project on Agri-PV systems.

After a BSc in Energy Engineering at University of Bologna and a MSc in Sustainable Energy Technology at TU Delft, specializing on Solar PV & Energy Storage, Michele worked first as a Technical Consultant and Project Manager at DNV, leading technical advisory and certification firm in the Energy space, and since September 2022 as Head of Product Management Floating-PV at BayWa r.e., international developer and IPP with a strong leading position and the highest track record in Europe (300 MWp) for Floating-PV projects. Michele has been working for more than 6 years in the interesting and booming industry segment of Floating-PV, covering key responsibility roles and pushing the international agenda in the field, including managing international projects towards standardization. He is now responsible of supporting BayWa´s strategy, development and expansion in the Floating-PV space.

Jasper Lemmens is a senior consultant and DNV's global practice lead floating solar. He has master's degrees in Applied Physics and Business Administration. In 2017 Jasper started working with floating solar when the floating solar market was about to emerge and initiated the development of services and standardisation which lead to DNV's Recommended Practice on floating solar in 2021. During these years Jasper has developed to an expert and on a continuous basis he pushes the boundaries of the floating solar industry.

Vincent Grumetz graduated from a mechanical engineering university and an international business school, enabling him to be a sales expert in technical industries. In 2006, he started working for Airmat Technology as an Export Sales Manager. In 2011 he joined Pronal (in rubber products industry) where he became the International Sales Director. Looking for new challenges, more in line with his spirit and convictions, in 2020, he joined Ciel & Terre as EMEA Managing Director to follow the follow and accelerate the growth of floating solar markets in Europe.

Sarah is a project manager at the Dutch Marine Energy Centre (DMEC), a leading accelerator and knowledge centre for offshore renewable energy innovations. She focusses on hybrid offshore energy parks that integrate different renewable energy sources like offshore wind, wave, and offshore solar. Her work covers technical, policy and sustainability aspects, along with stakeholder engagement.

Thomas REINDL is Deputy CEO of the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) and Principal Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He started with photovoltaics (PV) in 1992 at the SIEMENS Corporate R&D Labs. After holding several management positions at SIEMENS and running one of the leading German PV systems integration companies as Chief Operating Officer, he joined SERIS in 2010 and soon became Director of the Solar Energy System cluster. During his time at SERIS, he won public research grants in excess of SGD 20 million, founded 2 spin-off companies and authored strategic scientific papers such as the "PV Roadmap for Singapore". Dr. Reindl holds a Master in Chemistry, a Ph.D. in Natural Sciences and an MBA from INSEAD, all awarded with highest honors. His research interest are high-performance PV and embedded systems, techno-economic road-mapping and the reliable integration of renewable energies into power systems. He is also the Principal Investigator of the 'Floating PV testbed' project in Singapore.