Helena Gerard (1984) received her M.Sc degree in Commercial Engineering, specialization finance, from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 2007. At the same university she received an advanced master in Financial Economics in 2008. From 2008 till 2014, she worked for the energy company ENGIE (former GDF Suez). She occupied several positions in the field of sustainable energy and portfolio management. In 2014, she joined EnergyVille as senior researcher. She is responsible for the development of the EnergyVille roadmap on energy market design. She is involved in both (inter)national research projects as well as commercial contract research in the field of market design and system operation. She is chairing the BRIDGE working group on Regulation (EU) and the Flemish working group on Flexibility (Stroomgroep Flexibiliteit). She is coordinator of the Belgian funded project ALEXANDER that focuses on the acceleration of flexibility from the low voltage grid. She also coordinates the Belgian funded project GALILEO that focuses on the uptake of industrial flexibility.
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.