Solarplaza Summit | France

Thierry Vergnaud is co-president of France Agrivoltaïsme, a major association that defends fair and sustainable agrivoltaïsm. Thierry has been involved in the field of renewable energies for more than 15 years and for more than three years at Iberdrola France, world leader in renewable energies, as director of the onshore activity. Thierry designed Iberdrola France's Agrivoltaism offer centered on an attractive approach for agricultural stakeholders. It ensures the promotion of this offer among agricultural and institutional stakeholders, as well as the management of legislative and parliamentary monitoring. It has established an industrial partnership with various players to accelerate the development of Agrivoltaism in France and deploy projects combining agricultural activities and green electricity production, particularly in territories and crops affected by climatic hazards.

With a solid reputation in asset and project finance transactions acting for major Banks and Financial institutions, Sylvie assists many Financial Advisers and internationally based companies in organizing the most efficient debt structuring for various types of projects. She is recognized in the setting up of complex, innovative asset and project finance deals. Over her long experience, she has acted for various actors on both domestic and cross-border transactions as well as in the structuring of off-balance sheet transactions in relation to the leasing of assets and financing various investments, especially in the energy and transportation sectors. In 2017, she created La Plateforme Verte, a do-tank aimed at facilitating the dialogue between developers, funders and regulation actors in order to encourage the energy transition with capital and loans.

A After a degree at the business school, ESSCA Pierre Guerrier started his career in the sale of technical solutions for the building sector. He became marketing manager, sales national director and general manager, and decided to jump into the PV sector when nascent in 2009. Starting as Head of Development at Sun’R an innovative IPP pioneer in agrivoltaics, then Director of Development at Sonnedix. Pierre is now Director General at SOLVEO Energies. He also is administrator of Enerplan (French solar syndicate) and convenor of the La Plateforme Verte work group dedicated to agrivoltaics.

Prune des Roches co-founded the infrastructure team within Andera Partners, with a focus on energy transition and impact infrastructure. Previously, always in this particular sector, she worked as equity investor (at Demeter Partners), as financial advisor (at Greensolver) , as developer (at Canopy) and as M&A advisor (at Royal Bank of Canada in London) . Over the last 15 years, she has worked as an investor or advisor on more than 50 transactions in the energy transition sector.

Alexandre has worked in the energy industry for over 15 years’ and is already well-connected in the renewable energy market, with developers, IPPs, investors and lenders alike, as well as with large offtakers. Alexandre holds a PhD in Finance and Law at Goethe University Frankfurt / Université Paris Dauphine.

Céline Mehl, studied at INSA Lyon and started working in an engineering consultancy. She then, joined CSTB to define technical standards for photovoltaic processes in building, establishing the sector's first Technical Opinions. As GS21's technical referent and reporter, she enhanced test programs and evaluation processes, boosting building installations' quality. With over ten years in photovoltaics, she moved to ADEME, the ecological transition agency. There, as the Photovoltaic Division's national coordinator, she shapes R&D themes, conducts pivotal studies in PV, and advises the government. She significantly contributed to defining agrivoltaics legally in France and co-led a photovoltaic group in the TASE inter-ministerial strategy.

Marceau opened the French office of Enerparc in the beginning of 2019, to develop the project development activities and supervise the ongoing constructions. After graduating in 2012 from the School of Mines in Energy engineering and from the Advanced Master “Energy Management and Marketing” from Grenoble Ecole de Management, he joined in 2013 the international business development team of Enerparc AG.Headquartered in Hamburg, the Enerparc group is an international PV expert active on the entire value chain of solar power plants, from project development and EPC to O&M and portfolio management.

Daniel Bour, an engineer in Water and Forests, began his career as a senior civil servant before joining Générale de Santé as CEO for nearly a decade. In 2008, he founded Générale du Solaire, quickly establishing it as a French leader in the construction and operation of solar photovoltaic plants. Since 2014, he has chaired Enerplan, the solar energy professionals' syndicate.

Audrey Juillac is a 28 year old farmer working in the South West of France. She started her activity 2 years ago with a strong will to show that young farmers have the responsibility to contribute to the changes we need to implement in order to have a more resilient agriculture. She is an ex physicist in search of a meaningful professional activity that has a positive impact on the society. She now has 3 ha of land, all cultivated in an organic way and is currently developping an agropv plant with the help of Green Light Hous Développement

Yohann Guichard leads Finergreen's Offtake Advisory team, overseeing the arrangement and structuring of PPAs on a global scale. He brings with him extensive experience, having spent close to two decades at Engie before joining the Paris-headquartered advisory. His journey at Engie started in 2004 within the trading unit Gaselys, where he focused on originating energy supply contracts and risk management, working in commodities markets including gas, power, and oil derivatives, as well as dry bulk commodities, carbon emissions, and freight. Yohann holds a master’s degree in Banking, Finance, and Commodities from the Université Montesquieu Bordeaux 4.

After graduating from IAE, Yannick Pecherand-Molliex joined Bpifrance's teams in 2005. Initially serving as a Corporate Affairs Officer and then as Head of Guarantee Activity within the Paris Regional Directorate, Yannick moved to Bpifrance's Risk Directorate in 2019 and later to the Alsace Regional Directorate as Financing Delegate. In July 2023, he joined Bpifrance's Real Estate and Energy Environment Financing Directorate as Head of Structured Guarantees, overseeing the operational implementation of the guarantee fund for the long-term supply of green electricity launched in September 2023 at the request of the State, aimed at encouraging the signing of Corporate Power Purchase Agreements (cPPA) between industrial companies and renewable energy producers.

Hermine Durand is the deputy director of the electrical system and renewable energies within the Directorate General for Energy and Climate. A mining engineer, graduate of ENS and Sciences Po, she previously served as head of the Bordeaux division of the Nuclear Safety Authority (2016-2020), head of the office for hydraulic and marine renewable energies within the Ministry of Energy Transition (2020-2022), and then deputy director, whom she replaced at the end of 2023.

With nearly 20 years of experience in insurance brokerage for the Renewable Energy sector, holding a DEA in Contract Law, a Master 2 in Insurance, and from the Institute of Insurance in Paris (IAP), Guilhem has become a recognized expert in Renewable Energy insurance. His experience as a specialized broker has placed him at the heart of numerous projects in France and abroad. His market knowledge was gained through two leading brokerage firms in the Renewable Energy sector: Filhet-Allard (6 years) and then Verspieren (10 years), where he led the Renewable Energy department from 2014 to 2021. He is currently the President and partner of ENRSUR (Insurance Broker) and the General Director and co-founder of CoverGreen (Insurance advisory for banks and investment funds).

Laure Verhaeghe founded Lendosphere in 2014 to democratize investments in sustainable projects. As its President, she's led the platform to become a crowdfunding leader for the ecological transition, raising over €260 million, €80 million in 2023 alone, and uniting over 30,000 investors. Lendosphere has supported 100+ renewable energy operators with 500 fundraisings. In 2021, Laure Verhaeghe allied with 123 IM, enhancing Lendosphere’s growth and developing new distribution channels. This synergy enables financing up to €10M. Laure Verhaeghe graduated from Sciences Po Lille.

Claudia, an adept sales professional, spearheads RatedPower's engagement with French clients. Leveraging her background in international business and trade relations, she orchestrates exponential growth within this market while driving the advancement of RatedPower's cutting-edge technology.

Alex Metz is a director and head of the green mobility practice at Apricum – The Cleantech Advisory. Mr. Metz has expertise in strategy development with a focus on green mobility and solar energy. As head of Apricum's Paris office, he serves as point of contact to France- based clients' management teams to ensure the quality of communications, strategic recommendations, and deliverables. He speaks at major cleantech conferences worldwide and regularly contributes to publications and studies covering the entire electric mobility space as well as solar energy. Before Apricum, Mr. Metz worked for consultancy Guidehouse where he advised corporations and governments on adopting and implementing electric mobility alternatives in North America and Europe. During his time there, he created and led the firm’s electric mobility strategy offering, ranging across strategic roadmapping, go-to-market strategy, market sizing and mapping, business model assessment, and financial modelling. Prior to that, Alex worked for strategy consultancy Oliver Wyman, TotalEnergies’ solar division, and electric utility EDF. Mr. Metz holds an MSc in sustainable energy from Imperial College London and a MEng Grande École in science and engineering from École Polytechnique. Fluent in English and French, he has lived and worked in France, the UK, and the U.S.

Juliette has rich experience in Procurement and Project Management, especially in the Food Industry (Mondelez, Bonduelle), Retail (Lacoste) & pharmaceutical industry (Sanofi). She is currently responsible for Energy Procurement in Bonduelle. Besides energy cost management/optimisation, she works on strategic projects to support the decarbonisation journey of Bonduelle: PPAs, Biomass, and methanisation. In particular, she led the Corporate Power Purchase Agreement negotiation with Arkolia which is the first cPPA signed by Bonduelle. Juliette graduated from Sciences Po Lille in 2010 and holds a Procurement specialised Master (ESCP).

Ambroise is the Head of energy markets at Arkolia, a French IPP. After graduating in engineering from ENSTA Paris and Stanford University, Ambroise put his passion for climate change mitigation and renewable energy at the service of strategy consulting firm Blunomy. After spending three years helping large corporations move to low-carbon technologies, he joined Arkolia to implement market-oriented activities and strengthen the company’s expertise in electricity markets. To this day, his activities focus on PPAs, battery storage, balancing, and more largely electricity supply.

Jean-Pierre Delvigne leads the Energy practice of the law firm BCLP Paris. He advises industrial groups, investment funds and financial services providers of the industrial and renewable energy sectors. He has a deep experience in handling complex projects and M&A, financing and private equity transactions, assisting clients at every stage with practical and innovative legal solutions. Jean-Pierre has developed a high-end expertise on industrial and renewable energy projects. He has negotiated significant corporate Power Purchase Agreements (cPPAs) and has been involved in some of the major energy transactions of the sector over the past years.

Passionate about energy, Pierre-Laurent Faugeras began his career as a Mechanical Engineer, before moving into renewable energies in a sales role. As Sales Director of SILLIA énergie from 2009 to 2014, he was involved in the creation of the solar panel manufacturer in Bretagne. Pierre-Laurent joined SolarEdge in 2021 and now holds the position of Business Developer to support the company's growth strategy, convinced that SolarEdge's power optimizer technology and innovation capacities can help overcome the obstacles to the development of large-scale photovoltaic energy.

Christoph Gardlo is the Co-Founder and COO of ESFORIN (Energy Services for Industry). The company’s core business is algorithm trading in intraday markets with clients’ flexibilities – helping companies to optimize energy costs and reduce significant amounts of CO2. Before becoming an independent energy entrepreneur, Christoph gained profound experience in the energy markets in various companies. In the 2000s he joined E.ON with focus on Marketing, later becoming Account Manager Power Station Sales. In 2010 he was Head of Gas Sales Germany at Cargill, then Head of Key Accounts Portfolioservices & International Sales at natGAS AG, before he became COO and Co-Founder of ESFORIN.

Edouard Roblot is Low Carbon Building Director at Idex, a branch created in 2021 to accelerate the energy transition of businesses and communities. This team of 40 developers' mission is to facilitate the energy transition of businesses, with turnkey offers combining solar energy and charging stations for parking lots. Before joining Idex, Edouard Roblot led the C&I solar team in France at Total, then was an advisor in charge of environment and energy in the office of Valérie Pécresse, President of the Île-de-France Region .

Sébastien Darche has been working in renewable energy since 2009. He currently heads the Development and Asset Management team for Statkraft in France. His team oversees a global portfolio of 50 projects / 1 GW in development and 8 projects / 62MW in operation of grid-scale solar and on-shore wind projects. Prior to joining Statkraft, Sébastien led the French activity of Solarcentury and he also spent over 7 years at Martifer Solar where he was focused on developing, building and operating grid-scale solar projects. He is focused on building collaborative teams and is passionate about changing the way the world is powered.

After holding various positions within Crédit du Nord - Société Générale Group (including Head of Key Accounts, Risk Management, Upper Capital Financing Department, and Project Financing Department), Frederique Delfrayssi joined Caisse d'Epargne Ile de France at the end of 2019 with the aim of creating a project financing activity dedicated to Renewable Energies and more broadly to Energy Transition. To date, her team has co-arranged nearly sixty operations in wind, hydropower, and photovoltaic sectors, with contracts from EDF, CPPAs, or self-consumption contracts.