Research and Development UK

Ellen-Mary Pavageau, Head of Renewables

“The new Renewables team is a multi-disciplinary team that has been providing great support to EDF at a Group level in Offshore Wind. Our aim is now to apply and expand our skills to help EDF succeed in its Renewable projects across the world and reach its 2030 targets. Our key priority is to help reduce costs of Renewables. I believe being smart and innovative can help make the difference in a fast-changing environment.”

Roger Townsend, Open Innovation Manager

“Open Innovation is a global R&D initiative to boost EDF Group performance by fostering partnerships with technology start-ups and high growth SMEs. The Open Innovation team finds innovation to help the business create new products and/or services, or be more efficient in our day to day operations.”

Maria Brucoli, Research Engineer for Smart Customers

“I have a keen interest in rural electrification in emerging economies including both small remote villages and wider strategic country wide plans. My work in R&D is focusing on local decentralised energy systems such as meter storage applications, community energy and smart cities.”

Will Selby, Digital Project Manager

“I lead on the projects that R&D Digital Innovation deliver for the Customers business. I share my time between project management, product and service design, stakeholder management, writing proposals and demoing our work.”

Hugo Winter, Natural Hazards Research Engineer

“I'm responsible for leading the activity on extreme weather, coastal flooding, climate change and hazard combinations within EDF Energy R&D UK. My expertise concerns using statistical models to estimate the probability of extreme weather events such as floods, extreme winds and heatwaves as well as combinations of multiple hazards."

Frank Tutu, Analyst Smart Energy Applications

"I had a keen interest in energy technologies as an undergraduate student at UCL which led me to pursue a research degree in the design and characterisation of solar cells devices. Here, I'm contributing to the Smart Customers team's efforts in Smart Cities and investigating the opportunities and challenges presented by Building Information Modelling (BIM)."

Jan Pagan, Offshore Wind Mechanical Research Engineer

​​"My role takes many forms due to the highly dynamic nature of wind energy. However, I perform structural analyses of wind turbines using computer models and support Onshore Asset Management activities by performing onsite inspections using non-destructive methods such as drones and thermal cameras."

Jean-Michel Daignan, Data Scientist

“On a International Volunteer Assignment (VIE) contract in the Digital Innovation team, my role is to develop the activities of the Virtual Data Lab, to improve the usage of data for different entities of the company. It entails collecting, storing and analysing data from different sources to create value for EDF Energy.”

Dominique Bertin, Smart Energy Applications Manager

“My team supports the activities for the development of EDF solutions for tomorrow’s cities, communities and buildings. The aim is to help local residential customers, industry and authorities to respond successfully to the environmental and energy challenges they face throughout their low carbon journey.”

Nicholas Crocker, Project Manager

"I'm a dedicated Project Manager with a degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering as well as being a Prince 2 Practitioner. I manage a wide range of projects for all R&D departments but I specialise in public funded ventures. I have been with the team for two years now and every day presents a new challenge and involves connecting with different people, which keeps my role exciting."

Jenny Nilsen, Junior Research Engineer

“I was given the opportunity to join the Nuclear R&D team as part of the R&D graduate scheme whilst studying part-time towards my MSc degree. It has sometimes been difficult to juggle both working and studying but so far I have really enjoyed the challenge and have received plenty of support. Being able to put the skills I learn from my MSc degree into practice through exciting engineering projects has been really rewarding!”

Dan Bentham, Head of R&D Smart Customers

“Being responsible for all of the downstream R&D activities in the UK gives me a unique opportunity to understand the complex challenges facing the UK energy system today and those in the future. Whether it is the integration of renewables and the emergence of energy storage, the need to decarbonise heat and transport or the application and adoption of smart connected devices, life in the UK Centre is never dull!"

Irena Yanachkova, Digital Developer

“I am a third-year student at the University of Greenwich, on an industrial placement with EDF Energy R&D UK. Since I started, I’ve been working on a web based system which uses an exciting new way to give essential information to customers. I’ve also been working with colleagues in France on a project, which we first started in a hackathon, to develop a blockchain based system to enable recycling."

Esteve Borras, IDCORE Research Engineer

“I’m an EngD candidate at the Industrial Doctoral Centre for Offshore Renewable Energy (IDCORE), funded by the ETI and the EPSRC RCUK Energy programme. I’m currently working on cost and uncertainty in the design of offshore wind farms and contributing to the development of stochastic cost modelling tools.”

Philippe Martinuzzi, Research Engineer Mechanical Modelling

“I develop modelling tools to better assess the structural integrity of nuclear plants and contribute to the life extension of the UK nuclear power plants. I also lead on the Graphite related activities and am responsible for developments and supervision of the graphite team.”