BWEA Offshore Wind 09
The World Leading Offshore Wind Market
Over 900 people attended BWEA's eighth annual offshore wind event in Westminster over 24th-25th June 2009, jointly sponsored by The SeaRoc Group and Natural Power. Delegates included senior government officials, investors, financiers, manufacturers, developers and all others with an interest in the latest policy and technical developments in offshore wind energy.
BWEA was delighted to welcome the new Minister of State for Energy, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath OBE, in his first address to the industry. Read his speech here.
Delegates were stirred by Lord Philip Hunt’s opening address to BWEA’s eighth offshore wind conference at the QEII conference centre in London on the 24th and 25th June. In one of his first engagements since taking on the role of Minister for Energy, he gave the green light to the expansion offshore wind across the UK with the aim of decarbonising electricity generation.
Back in London for the second year in a row, the conference was bigger and better than ever before with a record 912 people attending and almost 90 companies on show in the exhibition. Delegates came from all over the world to hear about the latest progress from this growing UK industry and meet the people making it happen.
The latest policy developments were the focus of the first day and there was plenty to discuss. Lord Hunt’s announcement was backed up with the publication of a report, entitled A Prevailing Wind, which set out the work needed to deliver a new and larger series of offshore wind projects. The first day of conference also coincided with the ‘Go-Active’ date for the Government’s offshore transmission regime. This new legislation will revolutionise the way projects connect to the national grid and Alistair Buchanan, Chief Executive of Ofgem, was on stage to launch the new regime. BWEA also had news to share and in the economics session, Dr. Andrew Garrad of Garrad Hassan and Partners Ltd presented a BWEA-commissioned report on the capacity and costs of offshore wind. Like all industries, offshore wind is affected by the current global economic downturn. However, this report showed it is well placed to reduce costs and grow.
The conference rolled up its selves and got technical on the second day. Georg Adamowitsch, coordinator for the EU Commission, opened proceedings and portrayed a vision of a Europe linked by a single grid system. Six sessions then followed on research, grid, the supply chain, ports, skills and operations. These showed an industry that has moved on from talking about what it is going to do, to explain how it is already doing it.
One of the highlights of the second day was a keynote address by Sir Michael Pitt, the Chair-designate of the Infrastructure Planning Commission. In the job less than 3 months, Sir Michael set out his vision for a faster, fairer and more transparent consenting process for offshore wind farms.
The feeling of the conference was very lively and the message that came through was one of confidence. The industry has already achieved a great deal and put the UK ahead of the rest of the world, but with confidence the UK can wake up to the possibility of a long term UK based manufacturing industry and lead the world to do even more.
The detailed conference programme can be viewed here.
Exhibition
86 companies were on display at the accompanying exhibition.
See who exhibited.
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BWEA Offshore Wind 09, as advertised in:
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