Dr. Nikolaos Koukouzas is a geologist and holds a PhD from Leicester University. He has more than 17 years of experience on power production, CO2 emissions, carbon capture and storage technologies, industrial mineral applications, coal mining, coal combustion by-products utilisation, co-combustion of coal with biomass related topics. He has also participated as Scientific Responsible at various projects sponsored by the EC and by the Greek General Secretariat for Research & Technology. Dr Koukouzas was appointed to the European Commission, Direction General for Energy & Transport, the years between 1999 and 2003, as Detached Expert on Coal Technology. He managed several scientific projects within the framework of EU programmes such as THERMIE, ENERGIE, CARNOT & ECSC. In October 2003, Dr Koukouzas was appointed as Senior Researcher in the Centre for Research & Technology Hellas/ Institute for Solid Fuels Technology & Applications, managing the research activities of the Institute and he was promoted in 2007 to Director of Research.
Dr. Koukouzas has extensive experience on CO2 related projects, as he is involved (member of the Project Management Group and Workpackage leader of the Training and Dissemination Activities) of the EU-funded project “Enhanced Capture of CO2 (ENCAP)”, he is a member of the CO2NET, and scientific responsible of several research projects funded by EU related to CO2 emissions such as the project “Upgrading of High Moisture Low Rank Coal to Hydrogen and Methane (C2H)”. He is also involved in the Promotion of an Integrated European and National R&D Initiative for Fossil Energy Technologies towards Zero Emission Power Plant (FENCO) ERANet Project, which deals with strategy and policy issues on CO2 and it is coordinated by ForschungsZentrum Juelich. Dr Koukouzas represents Greece in the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) and in the Government Group of the European Technology Platform on the Zero Emission Power Plants. He is an author of over 80 publications in scientific journals and conferences.