By William O’Hearn, Business Network for Offshore Wind
On September 25, Network President and CEO Liz Burdock and Executive Vice President Ross Tyler traveled to Hamburg, Germany to participate in the Global Wind Summit, a combination of the WindEurope conference and the WindEnergy Hamburg exhibition, which ran for four days and drew more than 35,000 visitors.
In addition to the 11 massive exhibition halls including the technology shown to the left (note the full scale pictorial blade along the upper part of the back wall showing its length of 351 feet, longer than an American football field) the show featured 500 speakers and presenters and 1400 exhibitors from more than 100 countries.
One major benefit of the conference has been the ability to bring back the latest information and news from Europe and share it with U.S. companies. Even before Liz and Ross arrived in Hamburg, the Network had received 96 requests from European members or potential member companies seeking news of the U.S. offshore wind market. In other words, the Network is now being seen as the go-to source of information on the U.S. offshore wind sector for our friends in Europe.
This was reinforced when Liz presented a briefing on the progress of the U.S. offshore wind market, hosted by Scottish Development International. During the briefing (shown here) she got lots of great questions on offshore wind projects on the U.S. East Coast, and stressed the need for European developers, the U.S. federal government, and individual states to continue working together to build the competencies and capacity of the U.S. supply chain.
And it’s not just the U.S. A few days later Liz participated on a plenary panel titled, “Offshore Wind Outside Europe: A Look at the US, Taiwan and Japan,” which demonstrated how quickly this industry is going global. This presentation explored future opportunities for exporting offshore wind products and services from within the U.S. supply chain as it matures.
Liz and Ross left the conference with a new appreciation for the potential of our fast-growing U.S. offshore industry as seen through the eyes of European investors and developers. As the Network plans next year’s IPF—the International Offshore Wind Partnering Forum—in New York City, we will include more opportunities for strengthening this cross-Atlantic collaboration.