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SPEAKERS and presentations
Thank you for attending the recent EMCONZ conference, we hope you enjoyed it. The presentation recordings are currently being edited and will appear on this page in the next week. To view approved PDF power points, please click in to the presenter and find the document at the end of their description. Thanks again and we hope to see you in the next EMCONZ event!
DAVID SEYMOUR
David grew up in Whangarei with two younger brothers, where his parents were a pharmacist and a draughtsman. As a teenager, he moved to Auckland for high school before graduating from the University of Auckland in electrical engineering and philosophy.
Before politics, David worked as an electrical engineer in New Zealand and for private sector think tanks in Canada. He has served as ACT Leader and MP for Epsom since 2014. In Government, he was responsible for Regulatory Reform and charter schools. From opposition, he passed the End-of-Life Choice Act.
Fearless and principled, he is known for standing up for his constituents and, if necessary, to every other party. He has been named MP of the year twice, and ‘the only one talking sense’ too many times to count.
Jonny Parker
Planning for mass EV charging systems
Join Jonny Parker from Thundergrid to learn about how to plan for mass charging clusters, set up dynamic power logic, and integrate to protect the wider grid. Thundergrid have been developing and sourcing the best tools to ensure EVs can be charged on mass without causing mayhem on the grid. Join Jonny on a talk that will cover the key basics and provide some insight into how to plan scalable EV charging facilities.
Jonny the Co-Founder of Thundergrid has spent over 20 years working within the energy efficiency and sustainability industry. His multitude of roles across residential and commercial energy efficiency gives him a wide breadth of knowledge. Jonny focused on smart power management for EV’s back in 2015 and has been living and breathing them ever since.
Bhaba Das
Investigating the Carbon Emissions of Conventional & Semi Hybrid Insulation in Power Transformers under New Zealand Energy Mix
In this presentation, the results of an investigation conducted for a 40/60 MVA, 132/33.6kV ONAN/ONAF transformer with target impedance of 14% transformer on the environmental impact (tCO2-e equivalent) of the two different insulation systems, will be shared: Conventional Insulation System – Mineral Oil with Kraft paper, Semi- Hybrid Insulation System – Ester Fluid with TU paper. The presentation will share the comparison of the outcomes of cost, total ownership cost and total life cycle carbon emission assessment and will demonstrate the impact of insulation system on tCO2-e equivalent emissions for two different designs – Design 1: Conventional Insulation system in Mineral Oil and Design 2: Semi-Hybrid Insulation system in Ester Fluid. The outcomes will be shared for the New Zealand electricity mix.
Dr Bhaba Das is the Lead Digital Business Developer at Hitachi Energy (Transformers Business Unit) for Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa region.
Richard Templer
Occupational Regulation for Mechanical & Electrical Engineers
The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment [MBIE] are currently drafting new legislation that will change the way all engineers are regulated. This will introduce registration for all engineers, require some to be licensed and will change the structure of the regulatory bodies. What are the changes proposed? When will they occur? Who is covered? What do registration and licensing mean? What does this mean for CPEng? And what does this mean for me? All these questions and more will be answered. The information presented will be based on the most up to date briefings from MBIE and will focus on the implications for mechanical and electrical engineers.
Richard has been the Chief Executive of Engineering New Zealand since November 2020. A senior executive for twenty years he worked for government, local government, and the meat & wool industry. Prior to that he researched meat automation at Industrial Research and medical products at Fisher & Paykel Healthcare.
Kristian Jensen
Decarbonisation of transport – the real costs and implications
Electrification of transport is a methodology that can reduce carbon emissions and is within reach of NZ now, both in terms of supply and technology.However, it does require planning and preparation to meet the power demand, both in terms of energy and maximum demand.
The upstream infrastructure required to meet this power demand is dependent on geographic-specific requirements and local lines utilities requirements. So an eBus depot in an industrial area may have little upstream reinforcing required, but a depot in an urban area may require upgrades right through to the Zone substation.
This presentation looks at An very brief overview of the amount of generation required to replace imported fuels. Detail on a few case studies to show the power demand for large charging installations and the trends NZ is experiencing with respect to electrification of public transport (eBuses) and the recent progress in heavy goods vehicles. Very brief overview of eFerry development in NZ, including the shoreside infrastructure demands. Discussion on hydrogen technology developments and costing.
Kristian Jensen is the Technical Director across Industrial & Electrical in applications where production, transport, security and continuity are essential. These aspects, when coupled with low carbon requirements, can create a financial challenge and Kristian brings a broad range of experience on energy projects (whether energy generation, distribution or storage & use in transport) to help solve the issues.
He works where assets are geographically constrained and service levels are critical to cashflow. Kristian has a passion for LEAN and productivity improvement that comes through into systems, life cycle and process improvement, often by incorporating disruptive technology. He is CAMA certified (ISO55001) and involved in a number of low emission projects across NZ ranging from generation to storage and transportation. These include the grid-connected battery storage, bus electrification programs as well as hydrogen trials.
Kristian holds a BSc (Hons) in Electrical Engineering, an MBA (Project Management and Finance) and is a chartered engineer both here in NZ and UK. He is actively involved in the Carbon and Energy programs as well as renewable energy projects across the Australasian/Pacific region.
Whilst he is an engineer at heart, his passion is finding a better way and often found facilitating multi-disciplinary round table discussions with key organisations where the boundaries of society and our frameworks are being stretched.
Tim Lepper
Gas is Changing – Biogas in the Firstgas Transmission Network
The energy environment in New Zealand is changing and with that, Firstgas Group is looking to facilitate biomethane injection to the national gas transmission grid to support our customers in their attempts to decarbonise their businesses. This presentation will give a high-level look at the project Firstgas Group are completing alongside Ecogas, the Biogas producers, at their anaerobic digestion plant currently being constructed in Reporoa, New Zealand
Tim Lepper is a Senior Project Manager at Firstgas Group in New Plymouth and has had previous experience in agricultural biogas projects. He is now leading this project for Firstgas and committed to delivering New Zealand’s first project to successfully inject biomethane into the natural gas grid in 2023.
Wernher Roding
Containerised Switchrooms – A Valid Solution with Considered Design
In the last few years there have been various projects which have utilised containerised switchroom solutions to resolve unique project challenges. These switchrooms are not always for temporary or mobile installations, but also for turnkey, offshore, space constrained and time-critical projects. In this session we will discuss the use of containerised switchrooms and their pros and cons. We will also present some design experience and will share success stories, lessons learned and some general considerations that engineers should make when specifying and designing this equipment.
Wernher is a Principal Electrical Engineer with Beca and has 20 years’ experience in electrical and control systems engineering. After completing his M.Sc. degree in the UK, Wernher returned to New Zealand where he has worked in R&D, manufacturing and engineering consultancy. As a Consultant, he has worked on a number of small and large multidisciplinary projects in the main sectors of Road Tunnels, Water and Wastewater, Industrial and Power Generation. Specialist areas of expertise include electrical engineering, electrical compliance, condition assessments, and design management.
Mervin De Lancea
A new lens on vision based analysis
Image processing algorithms for 2D applications have been in use in industry for almost fifty years. The release of open source libraries (e.g. OpenCV) nearly two decades ago have done much to improve the accessibility of vision based analysis in standard industrial applications. Nevertheless, the problem still persist that vision based solutions are perceived to be complex and difficult, both in implementation and subsequent maintenance. This is an unfortunate situation, because in many industrial applications where precise monitoring of product and machine are required, vision based solutions give an unparalleled advantage. Therefore the practical problem at hand is facilitating the accessibility and implementation of powerful existing algorithms to standard industrial applications. This presentation aims to demonstrate how this is currently being achieved in numerous practical applications throughout New Zealand by automation engineers who are primarily concerned with solving everyday problems in a robust and reliable manner.
Mervin de Lancea received the B.Eng. degree in mechatronics engineering from Monash University in 2009, and PhD degree from University of Canterbury in 2012. His research interests at that time include Bio-robotics, human-assist robots, rehabilitation robots, and application of robotics in medicine. He was an Electrical and Controls Engineer with Scott Technology Ltd, Christchurch, from 2013 to 2021. He is currently with IFM as a Technical Engineer.
HARIS MURTAZA
Decarbonisation Roadmap for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs): An Energy and Carbon Efficiency Perspective’
NZ has experienced a raft of changes both at a societal, legislative, infrastructural, and environmental level when it comes to its response to climate change and its energy and carbon footprint.
However, these changes and contexts are not easily understood and comprehended by SMEs. SMEs make up 97% of NZ businesses and account for approximately 30% of the country’s business carbon emissions. Unfortunately, SMEs lack the required level of support and resources to transition to low-carbon energy sources, and unless significant steps are taken to address this gap, NZ will fall short of its net-zero goal.
Haris has completed an EECA-sponsored Energy Management Graduate program at Alsco and has now transitioned into a full-time Energy Management role for Alsco NZ and Australia. Haris holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and a Master of Engineering Management from the University of Auckland.
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