Team europe

Claudia Toro (PhD in Energy Engineering, 2011, BSc in Mechanical Engineering, 2007) is a researcher at the Energy Efficiency Unit Department of ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development. She is in the working team coordinating the implementation of Article 8 of the European Energy Efficiency Directive at national level through dissemination activities, training courses and research studies (benchmarking and analysis of audit data). She is involved in national and international activities and projects aimed at improving and promoting energy efficiency policies and good practices in SMEs and micro-enterprises in order to raise awareness of energy efficiency and to disseminate a structured approach to the implementation of energy efficiency measures in enterprises. Claudia has been a member of the EEE Planning Committee since 2022.

Since 2001, I am a researcher at EDF-R&D. I am currently working in the field of energy efficiency and energy and climate policy evaluation dedicated to the residential sector. My main subject of study is EEOs (Energy Efficiency Obligation). My interest in evaluation stems from my curiosity about the effects of theory in the field.

Mihai Tomescu is working on energy and climate related aspects in the European Environment Agency (EEA). Formerly, he has been a civil servant with the European Commission, where he worked on diverse topics related to climate mitigation, energy and environmental protection. In his work at the EEA, he focuses on cross-cutting climate mitigation and energy matters, including greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy and energy efficiency. Mihai is trained as an economist and holds an MSc in Environmental Management and Policy from Lund University.

Joel Franklin is Programme Manager for Programme Evaluation at the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, where he established the Energy Policy & Programme Evaluation team and has led the development of SEAI’s first Evaluation Framework. Prior to joining SEAI, Joel was an Associate Professor in Transport Analysis at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, where he led research in travel behaviour analysis, transport modelling, and transport policy evaluation, including on congestion pricing, land use-transport interactions, and electric vehicle adoption. During his time at KTH, Joel was director of undergraduate and master studies in the built environment for three years, as well as head of the international EIT Urban Mobility Master School for nearly three years.

Dr. Michaela Valentová is a researcher at the Czech Technical University in Prague. Her research focuses on energy efficiency and renewable energy policy and financing. She works as an external expert for the European Commission and is a visiting fellow of the International Sustainable Finance Centre. In her previous work, she led a number of projects on energy-using products, energy services, and Energy Performance Contracting.

Fabian Voswinkel is an Energy Efficiency Policy Analyst with the International Energy Agency.

His work focusses on the sustainable transition of energy systems in buildings and industry, particularly using heat pump technologies.

With a background in economics, his work in evaluation projects and policy design studies aims at helping to turn potentials into reality.

Joost Gerdes is a researcher of energy and climate policy at TNO in The Netherlands. Among other topics, he has been involved in top down energy efficiency monitoring of the Dutch Energy system for many years. More recently, in cooperating with social scientists at TNO, he has broadened his research to include the effects of behavioural change on energy consumption and the related emissions on the macro level.

Kate has twenty years’ experience of monitoring and evaluating programmes. Kate manages Energy Saving Trust’s Insight & Evaluation team, which provides data analysis, research and evaluation for projects related to domestic energy efficiency, renewable energy and sustainable transport. Kate has strong research and evaluation skills, provides guidance on research projects including methodology and questionnaire design, analysis, and reporting of primary and secondary data. She uses evaluation data to inform policy as well as project and programme design. She has been a part of the EEE planning committee since 2019.

Tim Mandel has been working as a Research Associate in the Department of Energy Policy and Energy Markets at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (Fraunhofer ISI) since 2019. His research focuses on energy systems modelling, particularly in the area of decarbonizing the building sector through energy efficiency and related electricity and heat infrastructures. In addition, he theoretically and empirically investigates the effectiveness of corresponding regulatory and financial policy instruments.

Robert Harmsen is assistant professor at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development (Utrecht University). His research concentrates on the heat transition in the built environment with a particular focus on policy evaluation. Robert teaches policies and evaluation tools in the master’s program Sustainable Development.

Barbara Schlomann is an energy economist. She works at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI in Karlsruhe, Germany. There she is a scientific advisor to the Executive Director of the institute. Her current research focus is on the design and evaluation of energy and climate policies and the monitoring of energy and climate targets. A particular focus of her work is the role of energy efficiency in the context of different decarbonisation options. Her present work is mainly underway in the framework of the German energy transition and its climate action strategy as well as the European Green Deal and the implementation of the Fit-for-55 package. Since 2011, she is a member in the Board of the European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (eceee). Since September 2020, Barbara Schlomann is a member of the German Council of Experts on Climate Change, who supports the Federal Government in the application of the Federal Climate Change Act.

As energy efficiency expert, Nele gave support to European institutions and Member States on the EED and EPBD implementation. Regarding energy efficiency, she coordinated the Horizon project streamSAVE calculation energy savings from energy efficiency obligations, supported the European ex-post evaluation of the former EED, is tracking progress of MS towards their 2030 targets, and is providing support on policy measures’ reporting in frame of the Governance Regulation. Regarding energy efficiency in buildings, development of digital building logbooks, decarbonized heating next to building passports are examples of her expertise. In addition, she built capacity among MS to facilitate the implementation of the Effort Sharing Legislation.

Martin Patel is professor at University of Geneva, where he has been holding the Chair for Energy Efficiency since 2013. He is a chemical engineer by training and worked at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research in Germany, in an energy consultancy and at Utrecht University in the Netherlands before joining University of Geneva. His research deals with energy savings and emission reduction in industry, the built environment and with energy storage. His group performs environmental and economic assessments of technologies, processes, products and services as well as evaluations of policy programmes.

Luis Mundaca is a professor at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University (Sweden). His research, educational, and outreach activities focus on the intersection of behavioural and environmental economics, particularly in the context of policy experimentation and policy evaluation. Mundaca’s primary research areas include behaviour change, energy use, finance, transportation, and climate change mitigation.

Guido Mattei has a MSc in Environmental engineering, PhD in energetic and a MBA. He has more than 20 years’ experience in the energy sector with the main international donors with on field experience in more than 30 countries. He is an assessor for the main European energy funding programmes with experience in mid term and final evaluation for UNDP, as well as experience with IRENA.
Dr. Mattei is member of several committees of international experts i.e. UNECE GERE (Group of Expert on Renewable Energy); UNECE Hydrogen Task Force; UNOSP Infrastructure Advisor Pool of Experts SIPG (Sustainable Infrastructure Practice Group); UNCC PCCB Paris Committee on Capacity Building; European Climate Pack Community (Climate Ambassador). He is associate member of CIRPS (Interuniversity Research Centre for Sustainable Development).