6 September 2016
Brussels Brief September 2016 Foreword
Giles Dickson
Hamburg beckons – 3 weeks to the WindEurope Summit 2016
There’s less than a month to go until the WindEurope Summit in Hamburg kicks off. We’ve a top line-up of speakers and a packed conference programme. There’ll be something for everyone.
Whether it’s technology or market developments, policy, finance, costs, public acceptance, repowering, storage, digitisation, electrification of transport/heating, corporate PPAs or the implications of Brexit – the WindEurope Summit 2016 has it covered. We’ve over 500 presenters across 50 sessions – our most ever.
The speakers include German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic, BNEF Founder Michael Liebreich, leading energy thinkers Jeremy Rifkin and Jeremy Leggett and a host of Ministers, CEOs and EU officials. And IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol will speak at the gala dinner on the final evening.
The conference is a mix of technical sessions and sessions focusing more on policy, markets and finance issues.
On finance there are sessions on insurance, investor protection, PPAs and LCOE – and there’ll be speakers from the financial sector including the development banks (EIB and IFC).
On markets, we’ve sessions on power market design, grid integration and end of life issues and repowering. The latter are of course increasingly important. Up to 76 GW of Europe’s onshore and offshore wind energy capacity will come to the end of their operational life between 2020 and 2030. The repowering session will consider the business case for lifetime extensions and repowering projects with panellists from both leading developers and manufacturers.
If politics is more your thing, the Summit has a session on regional cooperation: how EU countries can align their policy and legislation more effectively to support wind. And there’s a session on the implications of Brexit both for wind in the UK and for EU energy policy more broadly.
For the connoisseur, more than 200 posters on the latest technical developments in wind will be on show in the conference centre. Experts will be on hand to answer your questions.
The overall theme of the Summit will be “Making Transition Work”. We’ll publish a flagship report under this title on the opening day. The report will look at the progress (or not) of the energy transition in Europe today and the state of the wind industry. It will make a series of recommendations on how to support the transition and ensure wind can play its rightful role within it. I would like to thank the four event ambassadors (DONG, Enel, Enercon and Nordex-Acciona) for their strong support in the preparation of this and the Summit more broadly.
You can buy your ticket for the Summit here. The ticket includes access to Summit sessions and side events, full catering and entry to the parallel WindEnergy Hamburg exhibition. As a WindEurope member you get a discount on the ticket of up to €500. If you are exhibiting, the discount is even bigger. It’s important to note that the exhibition ticket, which is available via WindEnergy Hamburg, does not include access to the Summit. Please bear that in mind, so that you avoid buying two tickets and over-paying. We will not be able to reimburse the exhibition fee.
Don’t forget that what you spend on the event goes back into the industry, supporting the advocacy and other work we do for you.
We look forward to seeing you in Hamburg.
– Giles Dickson
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