1 August 2016
Brussels Brief August 2016 Foreword
Giles Dickson
The countdown to the WindEurope Summit begins
The WindEurope Summit 2016 (27-29 September) is fast approaching. As you know, our world leading wind energy conference is teaming up with WindEnergy Hamburg, the top exhibition for our industry. The two events will run side-by-side in Hamburg, which is of course a global industrial hub for our sector.
WindEurope will focus exclusively on the conference and social events in Hamburg. The WindEurope Summit 2016 will host over 40 conference sessions tailored to the interests of visiting delegates. From the political to the technical, the WindEurope Summit 2016 will have a strong offering for the expert, the strategist and the executive with unparalleled business and networking opportunities.
Some of the biggest names in the industry and in global energy policy will come together over the three-day event to share their insights on the opportunities and challenges facing the wind sector. There’s a long list of top speakers: German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel; EU Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic; Bloomberg New Energy Finance Chairman Michael Liebreich; leading energy thinker Jeremy Rifkin; CEOs from Envision.
The Summit will look at a broad range of issues impacting the wind market today and set to impact us in the future: the state of wind markets in Europe and worldwide; technology developments; digitisation; grid integration and power storage design; how the financing of wind is evolving; the growing role of PPAs (public and corporate); the importance of electrification in transport and heating; and in each of these areas how government policy can help address the challenges. The overall theme of the Summit will be making transition work.
Four of the companies leading the energy transition in Europe – DONG Energy, ENEL Green Power, Enercon and Nordex – have taken on the role of Event Ambassador for the Summit. They will showcase some of the solutions that are essential to delivering a secure, timely and cost-effective energy transition.
In the margins of the Summit there’ll be a roundtable discussion between industry CEOs and ministers from industrialised economies. We are running this in collaboration with the OECD.
The social functions will play an important role throughout the week. On the eve of the event (Monday 26 September) we’ll have our traditional members reception. On the final evening (Thursday 29th) we’ll have a gala dinner where the speaker will be IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.
Registration for the WindEurope Summit is now open. We look forward to seeing you there.
– Giles Dickson
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