Crown Estate’s energy chief joins ORE Catapult board

The Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult has appointed the Crown Estate’s director of energy, minerals and infrastructure, Huub den Rooijen, to its board as a non-executive director.

He will join the board on 1 July and currently leads the Crown Estate’s team responsible for managing the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

This includes rights to minerals and aggregates, cables, pipelines, carbon capture and storage, and offshore renewable energy.

In addition, he has more than 30 years of experience in the energy sector, predominantly working with Shell where he started as a research geophysicist.

While at Shell he was jointly responsible for creating its wind energy business in 1997 and managed its first offshore wind projects, including the first offshore turbines in the UK at Blyth in 2000 and the first offshore windfarm in the Netherlands in 2006.

It has also been announced that following a six-month period for continuity, Andrew Mill will leave Catapult’s board at the end of the year.

Commenting on the new appointment, ORE Catapult chairman Colin Hood said: “Huub brings extensive experience across all areas of the energy market, and in exploiting the UK’s extensive renewable energy resources in particular. He will bring invaluable insight to ORE Catapult’s Board, as we strive to deliver ambitious plans to seize the UK’s huge opportunity from offshore wind, wave and tidal energy.

“Andrew Mill has provided invaluable service to ORE Catapult, both as a Board member and as Chief Executive of Narec previously, and we are grateful for his considerable contribution towards developing the business into the highly effective innovation leader that it is today. We will continue to work closely with Andrew in his role as Chairman of EMEC.”