Our team

Energy Market Consulting associates (EMCa) brings senior energy sector advisory and management experience to directly deliver robust energy policy, strategic, regulatory and operational solutions. The profiles below include EMCa consultants and associates. Other specialists can also be drawn from our wider network.

Paul Sell

Managing Director – Paul is an energy economist and Managing Director of EMCa.  With 33 years’ experience, he has played a major role in implementing and advising on electricity markets, gas markets, network access and regulatory regimes in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia and other parts of Asia.

Career Summary

After initially working in government as an energy economist and policy advisor, Paul joined the predecessor to Ernst & Young in 1985.  He became a consulting Partner, establishing and leading an energy sector consulting group in Sydney and Melbourne, then a Vice President in Capgemini based in Sydney and with responsibility for energy sector reform consulting in Asia-Pacific.  Paul established Energy Market Consulting associates in 2002.

Expertise

  • Electricity and gas sector reform and restructuring
  • Electricity and gas networks – access arrangements, pricing and regulation
  • Design and operation of electricity and gas wholesale markets
  • Introduction of retail competition
  • Smart metering
  • Energy utility analyses including asset management planning, investment decision-making, demand forecasting, capital and operating expenditure forecasting and business modelling

Education

  • B. Sc. (hons) economics, (Specialisation in Operations Research)
  • Intensive business management school – offshore program of Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia
  • In-house training in a wide range of business disciplines including strategy, aspects of IT, accounting and finance 

Mark de Laeter

Director – Mark is an electrical engineer with 30 years’ experience in all aspects of the electricity industry, ranging from executive to senior line management positions in Western Power, a Top 500 Australian company with over 5,000 personnel.  He joined EMCa in 2013 as a Senior Associate based in Perth, Western Australia.

Career Summary

Prior to joining EMCa, Mark was the General Manager Networks at Western Power.  In this capacity, Mark was responsible for Asset Management Planning and for preparing Western Power’s regulatory Access Arrangements, which led to the approval of a $A5.5 billion expenditure plan.

Mark established Western Power’s Smart Grid Development Branch, which included management of the Perth Solar City Project – the most comprehensive energy efficiency initiative in Western Australia.  In his career he has also been General Manager Customer Services, General Manager Asset Management and prior to that was the Manager Regional Power Procurement.

Expertise

  • Electricity transmission and distribution planning
  • Electricity network access and regulatory access arrangements
  • Asset management practices
  • Project management
  • Smart Grids / Advanced metering
  • Electricity operations management
  • Customer service

 Education

  • Advanced Management Program, INSEAD (France),  2011
  • Master of Business Administration (Technology Management), Deakin, 1998
  • Master of Engineering Science, UWA, 1991
  • Bachelor of Engineering (electrical), UWA, 1982
  • Corporate member, Institution of Engineers Australia – NPER 3

 

Gavin Forrest

Director – Gavin is an electrical engineer with 20 years’ experience in all aspects of the electricity industry providing energy related policy and strategy advice to government, regulators and energy utilities. He joined EMCa in 2014 as Associate Director based in Perth, Western Australia.

Career Summary

After an extensive career in senior management roles ranging from engineering and operational management to corporate business strategy, policy and regulation in a top 500 Australian company, Gavin provides advice to clients in Australia, NZ and parts of Asia as a specialist in electricity management. He has also advised on market development and reform activities, development and review of jurisdictional requirements and policy settings, and as part of reform programs to adopt national regulatory frameworks in Australia.

Expertise

  • Electricity transmission and distribution management
  • Strategy analysis, strategy development and governance, including investment decision making
  • Regulatory requirements for electricty networks and markets, including technical and safety regulation
  • Review of regulatory determinations, economic assessment and benchmarking
  • Asset management planning, systems and practices
  • Electricity transmission and distribution engineering standards and systems
  • Efficiency review, business process design and re-engineering
  • Project, program and change management

Education

  • Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical), Curtin University
  • Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng), National Professional Engineers Register (NPER)
  • In-house training in a wide range of business disciplines including strategy, regulatory compliance, systems and strategic affairs

 

Scott Wallace

Associate Director – Scott is an engineer with 20 years’ experience in all aspects of the electricity industry. Scott has experience working across the entire electricity supply chain and has also worked in government policy development, energy regulation and electricity market operations.

Career Summary

Since joining EMCa, Scott has worked primarily with a large electricity utility business in Malaysia, providing advice and guidance on the preparation of their incentive based regulatory submission. He has worked with the business in preparing a convincing narrative for the submission, and ensuring all past and future expenditure is suitably explained and persuasively supported by robust justification. 

Prior to joining EMCa, Scott worked at Networks NSW where he project- managed the regulated revenue resets for NSW distributors Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy and Essential Energy. This included managing the preparation of three highly complex submissions for each business, and tens of thousands of pages of supporting information, independent expert reports, financial and performance reports, and court submissions.In this role he:

  • Managed various cross-functional business working groups which developed aligned strategy across the three businesses consistent with Board directions.
  • Developed policy and strategy positions for presentation to the CEO’s project executive steering committee.
  • Managed the project governance process, including review of all submission material submitted by the businesses to ensure alignment with agreed Networks NSW strategy, consistency between the businesses, and that submission material provided strong justification for proposed revenue. Scott managed the full governance and review process up to Board level.
  • Managed key external relationships within the AER from finalisation of the Better Regulation Guidelines and throughout the process until the final decision. Scott also managed key relationships at NSW Treasury and other network businesses.
  • Managed key relationships within the complex matrix structure of Networks NSW and the three businesses which allowed for the rapid delivery of specialist material from the businesses when required.
  • Managed key customer engagement activities to ensure that the 5-year plans proposed by the three businesses aligned with customer expectations, particularly in relation to price, reliability, and service levels, as required under the Consumer Engagement Guideline. This engagement achieved considerable customer support for the revenue proposal, evident through written and verbal submissions to the determination process.
  • Managed the procurement of over 30 expert consultant reports to support the regulatory submissions.

At NSW electricity distributor Ausgrid, Scott was responsible for smart meter policy and regulation. During this time, he also project managed a smart meter technology trial and several customer research programs aimed at developing and implementing new smart meter enabled electricity tariffs.

Scott spent 3 years working at the Australian Energy Market Commission, where he managed several major industry reviews including, review of the Effectiveness of the NEM in light of Extreme Weather, review of dispatch arrangements for wind farm and review of reliability standards.

Earlier roles include Wholesale Markets Regulation Manager at Energex Retail, Team Manager Electricity Markets at Queensland Government, Market Analyst at the National Electricity Market Management Company, and Engineer at NSW generator Pacific Power.

Expertise

  • Project management.
  • Electricity network access and regulatory arrangements.
  • Smart meters and electricity pricing.
  • Energy regulation.
  • Electricity market operations.
  • Government policy.

Education

  • Master of Business Administration, University of Technology Sydney
  • Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical), University of Technology Sydney

Eddie Syadan

Associate Director – Eddie Syadan is a finance, economics and accounting specialist.  He has had several years’ experience undertaking detailed analysis and providing recommendations and reports related to complex budget and finance matters to senior management at an agency level in both the Queensland and Western Australian Governments.  He has considerable experience in operational budget development, budget planning and budget forecasting as well as the development of financial plans and strategies.

Career Summary

Eddie has undertaken analysis of historical and projected expenditure requirements for electricity and gas utilities, for pricing and regulatory comparison purposes in Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia.

Eddie has managed the budgets of state government funding programs at the agency level in both Queensland and Western Australia.  This included developing financial plans and strategies and preparing the annual financial reports, preparing budget submissions, including resource allocation, monitoring budget performance and forecasting.  Eddie has assisted in the development of policies and programs to facilitate the development of regional economies and communities.

Expertise

  • Undertaking detailed analysis, recommendations and reports related to complex budget and financial matters.
  • Preparing budget submissions, monitoring budget performance and forecasting.
  • Preparing reports, including financial and project reports.
  • Analytical and problem-solving including activity-based costing analysis, cost benefit analysis and variance analysis.

Education

  • B.Bus. Finance – Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia
  • Diploma of Business – Southbank Institute of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
  • In-house training in SAP and Oracle accounting systems

Bill Heaps

Bill was previously Managing Director of our associated firm, Strata Energy Consulting Limited. Bill has held a directorship of Orion Group (a NZ electricity distributor), and was Chairman of d‑cypha Limited (now EMS Limited) during the period in which it was the Reconciliation Manager for the New Zealand electricity industry. Bill is a member of the New Zealand Institute of Directors.

Bill has 32 years experience, which spans the electricity supply chain.  He has worked on the implementation of electricity markets in both the United Kingdom and New Zealand and has practical experience of the Australian markets. He has also been involved with energy market developments across the Asia Pacific and India.  Bill has presented many papers on electricity market topics both in New Zealand and internationally.

Whilst much of Bill’s experience is in the commercial sector of the industry, he has also held executive roles in both generation and transmission.  He managed the largest New Zealand geothermal power stations through the transition from public to private ownership and was responsible for significant reductions in operating costs and increases in performance.  Bill was also Commercial Manager for Transpower, New Zealand’s national grid owner and system operator.

Bill has undertaken a number of projects involving assessment of capital and operational expenditure budgets of transmission and distribution network companies.  This includes Asset Management Plan reviews of all 29 NZ distributors, and major technical advisory projects to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) advising on regulatory capex and opex allowances, as well as similar work for the Singapore Energy Markets Authority (EMA).  Bill also played  major role in assisting Western Power to revise its Applications and Queuing Policy, to facilitate new generator connections.

Bill currently chairs the Transmission and Wholesale Market Advisory Groups for the New Zealand Electricity Commission and chairs the Technical Support Group for the Electricity Commission’s Wind Generation Investigation Project.

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