Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Professional Referees
Professional Association
Volunteer Experience
Timeline
Generic

Warwick Forster

Brighton le Sands,Australia

Summary

Energy professional with a 25 year career covering energy trading & retailing, generation, renewable project development and energy storage.

Motivated to help businesses manage the energy transition through breadth and depth of relevant work experience in wind, solar, energy storage and by understanding energy markets and networks impact on consumers.

Overview

27
27
years of professional experience

Work History

Technical Director, Energy Markets

Aurecon
10.2021 - Current
  • Created capability in energy markets (a new area for Aurecon to complement their corporate experience in engineering and advisory); developed internal business case, managed procurement of IT, and staff recruitment to build a team of energy market specialists
  • Established energy market modelling capability for clients in the National Electricity Market, recognised internally in 'Exemplar' program for use of digital tools, which involved joining a select group of colleagues to travel to New Zealand to meet and share ideas for utilisation of these skills
  • Performed technical due diligence on large scale BESS across multiple projects
  • Financial due diligence for financier of a renewable energy project focusing on impact of wholesale energy market prices influencing economic curtailment
  • Developed commercial models for off-shore wind projects
  • Assessed energy storage, PPA's, solar farms, microgrids and other options for Western Parkland City Authority (Bradfield NSW)
  • Advised a large smelter on portfolio optimisation to target wind and solar mix, energy storage options and energy market ancillary services.

Regional Sales Director (Australia, NZ & Pacific)

Redflow Limited (Energy Storage Supplier)
10.2020 - 10.2021
  • Responsible for managing Australian, NZ and Pacific sales channels
  • Seek, find and maintain new sales opportunities for energy storage
  • Maintain and grow installer & reseller network in Australia
  • Provide technical and economic advice to internal stakeholders
  • Represent the business at conferences and industry forums.

Principal

Apogee Energy (Energy Consulting Business)
10.2008 - 10.2020
  • Performed energy consulting for organisations including: Ausgrid - large grid scale battery & virtual battery economic assessment
  • Australian Energy Markets Commission - 5-minute settlement and study of battery economics, staff training in wholesale markets
  • CATL - World's largest battery OEM, South Australian business model development, studying arbitrage, FCAS and other opportunities
  • Indra - Energy market review of trading software
  • European Climate Foundation - electricity sector modelling in Indonesia using PLEXOS to examine opportunity for renewable energy development and reduction in coal plant build
  • Evo Energy (ACT network business) - battery studies for distribution connected battery and integrated solar and storage proposal including EV charging
  • FRV - South Australian and NSW 100MW solar + battery projects
  • Korean Trade Association - 6-month engagement for market research into Australian energy storage opportunities for a manufacturer
  • Monash University - detailed modelling of the Indonesian power system
  • Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism - primarily to teach people the workings of the Australian Energy market
  • Reposit Power - tender assistance for employing residential distributed storage
  • ACT government - Wind Farm training course project management and course material delivery, assessment of Next-gen household battery scheme and advice for the use of energy storage in reverse auction
  • Tender writing - EOI for a developer for large scale solar project in Queensland
  • Vector Energy as described below.

Technical Manager - Energy Storage (Tesla) & Networks

Vector Limited
12.2015 - 09.2016
  • Managed Australian technical, regulatory and economic areas for NZ network business entering Australian energy storage market
  • Represented Vector at Clean Energy Council, Energy Storage Council and other industry bodies
  • Established commercial opportunities for energy storage with network companies, energy retailers, solar installers, government tenders and other businesses
  • Creation of business processes and Australian office
  • Analysis of storage economics by market segment, region and customer type
  • Developed software models to optimise energy storage sizing, calculate demand charge saving and simulate long term use.

Energy Markets Manager

Union Fenosa Wind Australia
10.2008 - 12.2015
  • Lead negotiations with energy retailers, banks, and other energy market participants for potential off-take deals for the company, which is one of the largest wind farm developers in Australia, owned by Gas Natural Fenosa, one of the largest utilities in Europe
  • Examined, pursued and progressed greenfields opportunities for new renewable projects including a Pilbara based wind farm
  • Performed detailed analysis of climate and market data to support business decisions
  • Built the business plan for a $20m research and control centre with the ANU Energy Change Institute for the first two ACT wind auction tender rounds
  • Managed market analysis and authored most of the business' submissions to federal and state governments in relevant policy areas such as the Renewable Energy Target (RET), as well as writing technical papers
  • Presented publicly at over a dozen conferences in Australia and overseas.

Senior Energy Trader

Alinta Energy (Babcock & Brown Power)
10.2006 - 10.2008
  • Responsible for BBP's portfolio of wholesale gas and generation primarily in the eastern states
  • Trading of futures and OTC derivatives mainly in electricity against our portfolio of power stations in Victoria and Tasmania, and to a lesser extent, those in NSW, Queensland and South Australia
  • Formulation of wholesale gas contracts and risk management work in the Alinta WA retail business
  • Environmental product trading, power station accreditation and management of external environmental audit
  • Analytical and negotiation work involved on the Tamar Valley power station project in Tasmania for both the commissioning of the new plant, and the purchase and registration of the existing gas turbines
  • Power station bidding strategy formulation and management of spot bidding
  • Participation in the gas industry's working group regarding the creation of gas trading markets outside Victoria, in NSW and South Australia (STTM).

Energy Trader

Aurora Energy
02.2005 - 10.2006
  • Managed purchasing of hedging instruments in mainland & Tasmanian electricity, Tasmanian gas and Australian environmental markets for the purpose of risk management
  • Transfer pricing was also performed in this area, which was due to the small size of the team
  • This meant responsibility for quoting around 500 prospective customers in the final year and successfully growing Aurora's mainland portfolios
  • Database creation to analyse options, forecasts and calculate our national market contract, load and environmental position accurately in the absence of commercial programs to perform these duties
  • Responsibility for the wholesale electricity pricing and revenue/profitability analysis of Aurora's pre-payment metering (National Pay as You Go) for the deployment of this technology on the mainland in markets where full contestability was present
  • Represented Aurora retail at the ERAA (Energy Retailers Association of Australia) meetings, a body that represented retailers in submissions of policy to Government, Regulators and Industry bodies.

Forecasting and Trading Support Manager

Ergon Energy
10.2003 - 11.2004
  • Managed a small team of three staff that performed forecasting for the retail business, which involved the preparation of load forecasts for contestable customers, the regional Queensland franchise load and state demands for the whole of the national electricity market
  • Managed price forecasting
  • Instigated a review and benchmarking of the existing commercial software against alternative models, for the purchase of a new system
  • Quantified the exposures across the retail business for arbitrage trading and for the retail customers against the suite of risk management products, including swaps, caps, Asians, futures and the like for both exchange traded and OTC products
  • Created an econometric model for regional Queensland, by analysing the franchise load for the prior four years by statistical division and examining the impacts of population, weather and other factors upon the demand for electricity
  • Monitored the retail business' contract position against expected customer loads and oversaw the risk limits, using software that I wrote that matched the load forecast database and the trading contracts database
  • This took extensive work (over 100 pages of coding) in a combination of VBA and SQL, and was the only reliable source for accurately monitoring positions over a dozen different portfolios to a half-hourly level
  • This program also ran itself overnight and periodically emailed traders and senior management of the current positions across these portfolios.

Short Term Trader / Forecasting Analyst

Ergon Energy
02.2000 - 10.2003
  • Managed short-term trading exposure across the business portfolios
  • Monitored and reported Electricity futures trading
  • Installation, trial and operation of electricity price forecasting and NEM information systems
  • Implemented commercial systems in the business, including Neo, iPool and Prophet and trialled a number of others, including Plexos and 2-4-C
  • Wrote applications for the reporting and interpretation of price forecasts, extraction and reporting of infoserver data, customer load data, customer and transfer price, options valuations, the loading and manipulation of weather data and forecasts, and also the accurate monitoring of Ergon's half-hourly contract and retail position that was not previously available
  • Most of this work was written in VBA or in Matlab code
  • Engagement with Queensland treasury, developing Ergon's forecasts for the BPA (Benchmark price Agreement), which was the risk sharing arrangement with Queensland Treasury to hedge the financial risk of Ergon's franchise load.

Settlements & Operations Analyst

Energex Retail
08.1998 - 02.2000
  • Settlement of all pool purchases, contracts, transmission and distribution charges
  • The creation of computer-generated models to forecast cash flow, monitor prudential position, and report on trading performance to management.

Forecasting & Settlements Analyst

ACTEW Corporation
04.1997 - 08.1998
  • Responsibility for the settlement of electricity purchases for the ACTEW group of companies in NSW, Victoria and in the ACT
  • Accurately managed settlement of pool purchases, contracts, transmission and distribution charges, and the administration and monitoring of metered data for all contestable customers
  • Performed load forecasts from 5 to 365 days of the ACT's half-hourly total load and later developed this to forecast load allowing for won and lost customers
  • Negotiated with Victorian network companies giving grounds to reduce contract demand for a number of ACTEW's interstate customers saving them over $100,000
  • Worked on the long-term energy pricing of a proposed wind farm.

Education

Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) -

Australian National University

Bachelor of Economics -

Australian National University

Masters of Business Administration (Technology management) -

La Trobe University

Diploma of Financial Services -

AFMA (Australian Financial Markets Association)

Skills

  • Renewable Project Development
  • Big Data Analytics
  • Energy Portfolio Optimisation
  • Energy Trading & Retailing
  • Energy Storage Assessment
  • Business Development

Professional Referees

Suitable and relevant referees available upon request

Professional Association

Institution of Engineers Australia, Graduate member

Volunteer Experience

  • Business Planning, Brindabella Ski Club, 2023 - present, develop opportunities to improve utilisation and revenue of ski club assets
  • Club Captain, Brindabella Ski Club, 2019-2022, Organise ski club races and other alpine activities
  • Surf lifesaver, Coogee beach, SLSA, 2007-2018
  • Information Officer, Brindabella Ski club, 2012-2017, Responsible for provision of IT services and website maintenance. Tendering for a new ski accommodation booking program and managing EOI/RFT process
  • Environmental Officer, Brindabella Ski club, 2010-2013, Responsible for energy efficiency, renewables purchasing & contracting work. Due to my work, the club received a “highly commendable” certificate in the 2012 Perisher Range Resorts Environmental Management System for its work in meeting its environmental objectives and establishing the wholesale purchasing of REC’s through an agreement with the Hepburn Wind community wind farm. Renegotiated electricity contracts and corrected tariff selection to save $10,000 on annual energy charges.

Timeline

Technical Director, Energy Markets

Aurecon
10.2021 - Current

Regional Sales Director (Australia, NZ & Pacific)

Redflow Limited (Energy Storage Supplier)
10.2020 - 10.2021

Technical Manager - Energy Storage (Tesla) & Networks

Vector Limited
12.2015 - 09.2016

Principal

Apogee Energy (Energy Consulting Business)
10.2008 - 10.2020

Energy Markets Manager

Union Fenosa Wind Australia
10.2008 - 12.2015

Senior Energy Trader

Alinta Energy (Babcock & Brown Power)
10.2006 - 10.2008

Energy Trader

Aurora Energy
02.2005 - 10.2006

Forecasting and Trading Support Manager

Ergon Energy
10.2003 - 11.2004

Short Term Trader / Forecasting Analyst

Ergon Energy
02.2000 - 10.2003

Settlements & Operations Analyst

Energex Retail
08.1998 - 02.2000

Forecasting & Settlements Analyst

ACTEW Corporation
04.1997 - 08.1998

Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) -

Australian National University

Bachelor of Economics -

Australian National University

Masters of Business Administration (Technology management) -

La Trobe University

Diploma of Financial Services -

AFMA (Australian Financial Markets Association)

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Warwick Forster