The Research group for Natural Resource Law, Environmental Law and Development Law and the Bergen Center for Competition Law & Economics (BECCLE), had the pleasure to host a hybrid webinar taking place on the 11th of May at 10.00 am at the Faculty of Law University of Bergen on Energy infrastructure in times of energy and climate emergency. Three recognized experts presented their perspectives to the topic and the session was accompanied by an interactive Q&A.
Our speakers (and their topic titles) for this session are (click on the title to download presentations):
- Lars Sørgard, Professor in Economics (NHH) and leader of the Energy Commission (Norway) – The state’s role in investment in more renewable energy: The Norwegian experience
- Ronnie Belmans, Emeritus Professor in Electrical Energy Systems (KU Leuven) and EnergyVille – Building wind turbines offshore may be the easy part
- Vaido Poldoja, Senior Legal Office (EFTA Surveillance Authority) and State aid expert – State aid news in times of energy and climate transformation
This session was moderated by Prof. Leigh Hancher (UiB, Tilburg & FSR).
Agenda:
- 10.00 Doors open
- 10.05 Seminar starts
- 11.20 Presentations finish
- 11.45 Q&A session ends
Recordings of the seminar you can find HERE
The seminar was held in the Auditorium of JUS II – https://goo.gl/maps/spvyZQpHsuDKRApV6
About our speakers and moderator:
Lars Sørgard is professor at Norwegian School of Economics and director of BECCLE. His research field is competition policy, and he served as the Director General of The Norwegian Competition Authority 2016-22. He has also done research and policy work on the energy market, now recently he was the leader of the Energy Commission that delivered its report in February this year (NOU 2022:3).
Ronnie Belmans received Ronnie Belmans is emeritus full professor at KU Leuven. His research interests include smart grids, security of energy supply, techno-economic aspects of the liberalisation of the electricity market and energy system modelling. He was co-founder and chairman of EnergyVille (until 2021), a research collaboration in Genk specializing in sustainable energy and intelligent energy systems. From 2017-2022, he was chairman of the board of directors of the VREG, the Flemisch regulator for electricity & gas markets. Ronnie is also honorary chairman of the board of directors of the Belgian transmission system operator.
Vaido Poldoja is a Senior Legal Officer at the Competition and State aid directorate of the EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA). Among other tasks, Vaido handles adopting ESA’s new Guidelines on State aid for Climate, Environmental protection and Energy. Prior to joining ESA, Vaido worked in various state aid units at the European Commission (DG Competition) and spent several years in private practice at a pan-Baltic law firm in Estonia.
Leigh Hancher is Professor of European Law at the University of Tilburg. She is a part-time Professor at the Florence School of Regulation within the European University Institute and the Director of the FSR Energy Union Law Area. Her research interests include energy market regulation, EU state aids and energy market governance. She has also been a Professor at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, a Visiting Professor at the University of Calgary, Canada, Head of Legal at the Energy Charter Secretariat in Brussels and a member of the Dutch Academic Advisory Council (WRR).