Senior Researcher/Activity Leader
Helena Gerard (1984) received her master’s degree in Commercial Engineering, specializing in Finance, from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 2007. At the same university she obtained a master-after-master in Financial Economics in 2008. From 2008 to 2014, she worked for the energy company Engie (formerly GDF Suez). In 2014, she joined VITO/EnergyVille as a senior researcher. She is responsible for the development of the VITO roadmap on energy market design. She coordinates the Belgian-funded ETF project ALEXANDER (2021-2025) on low voltage flexibility and the ETF project GALILEO (2024 – 2027) on industrial flexibility. She chaired the European BRIDGE working group on regulation for the past 7 years (2018 – 2025).
EnergyVille is a collaboration between the Belgian research partners KU Leuven, VITO, imec and UHasselt in the field of sustainable energy and intelligent energy systems. EnergyVille develops the technologies and knowledge to support public and private stakeholders in their transition to energy-efficient, decarbonized and sustainable urban environments. The unique complementarity of the research partners allows us to integrate the entire energy system value chain in our research. This ranges from materials and components up to the level of entire energy systems, business models and strategies. Our activities are gathered in eight interdisciplinary domains: solar energy, battery storage, power electronics, thermal systems, power-to-molecules, energy for buildings and districts, electrical grids, energy strategies and markets.