Jillian wins the Innovator Award at SR's YPGE Awards 2022

Wave Energy Scotland’s Research Engineer, Jillian Henderson, has been awarded the coveted ‘Innovator Award’ at the Scottish Renewables Young Professionals Green Energy Awards 2022, which took place on 28th April in Glasgow’s Grand Central Hotel. 

The Innovator category is presented each year to people who are leading the way in the renewables sector by providing solutions, developing new techniques, or challenging convention with new project ideas. 

Since joining WES in 2017, Jillian has put her background in physics to great use, bringing a fresh perspective to some of the challenges facing the wave energy sector. Her innovative thinking, grown from her experience developing life-saving technology for third world countries, has been a wonderful addition to the WES team and the wider ocean energy sector.   

Jillian’s work has focused on development of tools and processes for evaluation and selection of wave energy technologies – these have become the framework upon which the successful Wave Energy Scotland programme is built. Beyond this, Jillian has used the evaluation metrics to create a completely new approach to innovation in the wave energy sector. Through a project named SEAWEED, Jillian has built a method which allows funders, technology developers and researchers to identify and prioritise areas of innovation and evaluate how attractive the resulting wave energy device concepts would be. 

By collaborating with many partners, including the European Commission, the US Department of Energy and many partners within the EU-funded DTOceanPlus project, Jillian has maximised the impact of her work. Her enthusiasm for seeing successful renewable energy technology has ensured that in her short time working in the sector, she has built strong and lasting networks spanning continents.   

Commenting on her win, Jillian Henderson, Research Engineer at WES said: 

"I'm absolutely thrilled to have received the Innovator award. It’s been so exciting working in wave energy and seeing how far the sector has come in the last five years. Thanks to Scottish Renewables for such a fantastic award and thanks to my colleagues at WES for being a brilliant team to work with.” 

Tim Hurst, Managing Director at WES said:  

“I’m delighted that Jillian has won the Innovator Award. Jillian's innovative style has been a true enabler to the wave energy concept creation toolset she has created. This has given us the tools to think about the challenges and opportunities of wave technology and innovation in a completely unique way. It’s also fantastic to see this work in wave energy being recognised by Scottish Renewables and is a fair reflection of the progress the sector has made in the last few years." 

For the full list of finalists and winners, visit: https://www.scottishrenewables.com/news/1052-eight-rising-stars-honoured-at-the-young-professionals-green-energy-awards