All (about renewable) Energy – Faulty lifts and a renewable salmon(d)

This year’s All-Energy in Aberdeen, Scotland, kicked off with a 25% increase in exhibitors with 580+ from over 20 countries, and over 7000 pre-registered attendants.

The opening session saw an impressive panel chaired by Andrew Jamieson, Chairman of RenewbleUK and Regulation and Markets Director at ScottishPower Renewables. Yours truly met him earlier – around 7.30 in the hotel lift trying to a) find the exit (harder than you think in the hotel I stay in!) and b) find the shuttle bus to the exhibition and conference centre. Little did I then know who I was moaning about lifts that went up when we pressed ‘down’ and the ungodly early hour they had ordered the bus for!

A renewable Salmon(d)

However, back to the important issues of the day! As alluded to in the news section, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond announced the re-elected Scottish Government’s new commitment of 100% renewable energy by 2020. As he had the slight inconvenience of being instated today, we had to settle for a video statement. Although I was initially disappointed as Salmond is always a fun man to listen to, this soon disappeared as he promised to come down and kick in a certain someone’s door in Westminster should further issues over the fossil fuel levy arise. This caused the expected giggles among the audience.

However, Salmond is not only funny to listen to, he is also inspirational in his stated belief in renewable energy, at the same time as he does not cut off Scotland’s commitment to oil and gas – only natural when addressing an audience in the oil and gas capital Aberdeen. Salmond also went on about carbon capture and storage, but as this is not part of my brief for Renewable Energy Focus, I will galantly skip those parts.

The unlucky speaker to follow Salmond’s fireworks, was Duarte Figueira, Head of ORED’s Offshore Renewables at the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), filling in for Minister Charles Hendry. He started by listing many of the renewable energy achievements over the last year, which I will not waste your time with by repeating here.

To meet the UK’s target of 80% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050, Figueira warned that we “need a major change in the way we generate energy,” and that the supply chain would be increasingly important to the UK.

The challenges

Whereas Figueira praised achievements, Sir Ian Wood, Chairman of the Wood Group, warned of the challenges facing the offshore wind sector, saying that the offshore wind industry can learn a lot form the experiences made by offshore oil and gas.

“Offshore wind is spending a lot of money on developing technologies that already exist in the oil and gas industry,” he pointed out. “The biggest uncertainty for offshore wind is to operate in the offshore environment,” he added before saying that a lot of that uncertainty could be mitigated by cooperating with an industry that is already operating in those conditions.

“The oil and gas people should be less cynical about the offshore wind industry,” he urged, at the same tame as he told the offshore renewable industry to likewise be less cynical of the oil and gas industry.

Talking about offshore wind technologies for Round 3, Wood said he believes there will be a shift from geared to direct drive solutions as turbines move towards the 5-10 MW range.

The original goal

As Duncan Botting, Business Innovation and Growth Director at Parsons Brinckerhoff entered the stage, the audience was called on to remember the original goal of the renewable energy industry – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

To achieve this, he said “strong leadership” is needed from both the UK and the Scottish governments. “It should not be left to the market to decide on some of the prioritisations needed.”

Niall Stuart, CEO of Scottish Renewables had the unfortunate slot just before the coffee break where he laid out his association’s call on the Scottish Government to implement the right incentives and policies to enable the huge increase in renewable energy set out by the Scottish Government.

Comment on this blog