Inaugural International Conference Energy & Meteorology
Weather & Climate for the Energy Industry
8 — 11 November 2011   Gold Coast   Australia

Dr Eduardo Delgado Assad has a masters and doctorate in Agroclimatology and Remote Sensing.
He has been with EMBRAPA (the National Agricultural Research Agency) in Brazil for more than 25 years. Wokring closely with the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) he has provided expert analysius of NOAA satellite data, and implemented an integrated GIS and Image Processing system (SPRING).
He has been the chief general of EMBRAPA Agricultural Information Technology for more than 17 years, and is currently responsible for the Laboratory of Environmental Modeling, which employs 20 people, including researchers fellows and interns. He created the laboratory of biophysics environment, with significant scientific support of INPE.

Dr Peter Coppin received the B.Sc. (Hons) degree in 1974 and the Ph.D. degree in micro-meteorology from Flinders University, Australia, in 1978.
After completing a post-doctoral fellowship in wind energy at the University of Hannover, Germany, he was appointed as a research scientist at CSIRO in 1980.
He was Director of the CSIRO Wind Energy Research Unit until 2009 and is currently Leader of the Storage for Renewables Stream at the Energy Transformed Flagship.
His research interests include boundary-layer meteorology, wind energy and renewable energy storage.

Mr Tim George joined AEMO in March 2009 as Executive General Manager Planning after several years as GM Grid Development with Transpower in New Zealand. A professional engineer with an MSc in electrical engineering, Tim is originally from South Africa. He began his engineering career in Namibia before moving to Australia in 1982. He has worked in the Australian electricity transmission sector for over 25 years, including with the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, Powerlink in Queensland, the Victorian Power Exchange and NEMMCO. The AEMO Planning role encompasses both gas and electricity networks and includes the production of Gas and Electricity Statements of Opportunity, an Annual Planning Review for Victoria and the National Transmission Network Development Plan (NTNDP) for the National Electricity Market (NEM).

Prof V.V.N. Kishore is a Chemical Engineer by training. After graduating from Andhra University, Waltair, he obtained M Tech and PhD from IIT Kanpur. He started working in the area of renewable energy technologies in 1978, first at I.I.T.Kanpur and later at CSMCRI Bhavnagar. He joined TERI in 1984 and served in various capacities as Area Convener, Dean (EET), Advisory Board member and Resource Advisor. Over a long span of about three decades, he has acquired a vast experience in the broad area of renewable energy utilization, covering basic research, product/process development, field testing, technology transfer, execution of turnkey projects, policy research, consultancy, training and capacity building, and teaching.
His current activities include study of distributed power generation systems, high performance biomass cook stoves, high rate biomethanation, lignocellulosic ethanol, passive building design and solar thermal systems. He has eight books, 160 publications in journals/conference proceedings, numerous reports, 30 products/end-use packages, and eight patents to his credit.
He was a visiting fellow at Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, USA and a consultant for the World Bank and for Winrock International, Washington. He is also a Visiting Professor at the UK Open University, where he has collaboration for running a PG Diploma in renewable energy through distance learning. He is currently the program Director for the National Renewable Energy Fellowship (NREF) program of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).

Mr Keith Parks is currently with Xcel Energy Services, Inc. Prior to Excel he was with NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, USA).
Xcel Energy, Inc. large power utility company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It provides electricity and natural gas over a very large geographical area including the states of:

• Colorado,
• Michigan,
• Minnesota,
• New Mexico,
• North Dakota,
• South Dakota,
• Texas, and
• Wisconsin.

Dr David Renné received his master's degree and PhD from Colorado State University in Atmospheric Sciences and Earth Resources.
He is the principal project leader for analysis at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) where he develops and manages programs on renewable energy resource assessment and analysis. He also manages DOE's Solar Resource Assessment activities funded under the Solar Energy Technologies Program. Some of his recent work at NREL has been for international organizations such as the US Agency for International Development and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). In these programs, he has managed solar and wind energy resource assessments and the development of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) tools for countries in Asia, Central America, South America and Africa.
In addition to his role at NREL David is the current president of the International Solar Energy Society (ISES).