SPONSORS OF REGIONAL FOCUS POWER CLUSTER PROJECT FINISHES WITH A FLOURISH
The POWER cluster project focused on supporting the offshore wind industry in the North Sea Region of Europe. The European funded project highlights the need to collaborate to meet the challenges facing the industry. Key achievements included organising a series of international business to business events which led to more than 2300 new business contacts and the award of contractsas well as the production of two detailed studies.
3 YEARS WORK
This marks the culmination of more than three years hard work. The project officially came to a close on June 30 2011. The project was lead by Bremerhaven Economic Development Company in Germany. Both Suffolk County Council and the East of England Energy Group (EEEGR) were involved from the start.
The POWER cluster project was one of the finalists in the RegioStars Awards 2011. The awards recognise good practice in regional development and highlight original and innovative projects.
BREMERHAVEN CONFERENCE The award follows POWER cluster’s final conference entitled ‘Sharing Learning in Offshore Wind Energy’. The event focused on sharing what the project has learnt. It took place at the Klimahaus in Bremerhaven 30 May – 01 June.
Anne-Bénédicte Genachte, Regulatory Affairs Advisor – Offshore, European Wind Energy Association talked about the trends in offshore wind. This demonstrated a move to offshore wind farms further from shore and in deeper water. She also stated that 308 wind turbines were installed and connected in Europe in 2010 resulting in 883MW of installed capacity - enough to power more than 500,000 homes. This is an increase of 53% from 2009.
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www.windenergynetwork.co.uk
John Best, CEO of EEEGR presented key highlights from the business element of the project.
He talked about POWER Cluster Mapergy. This shows products and services offered to the offshore wind industry in Europe. It launched with 500 companies from six European companies and there are now more than 600 companies represented. It is based on a common classification system and is free to join via the POWER cluster website
LEARNING FROM OIL AND GAS John finished by talking about a study looking at what the offshore wind industry can learn from the oil and gas industry. This emphasises the importance of not repeating mistakes made there and learning from their experiences of working in harsh offshore environments. This is important if the industry is to drive down cost - arguably its biggest challenge.
DECLARATION OF COMMITMENT Project partners are committed to ensuring its lasting legacy. This is why they jointly agreed a declaration which emphasised their commitment to lobby for action to tackle the key challenges facing the industry. These challenges include the need for more funds to support research and development. The declaration was handed over to European Commissioner
for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn by Mathias Grabs on behalf of the project at the RegioStars Awards in Brussels.
John Best said ‘The project has enabled EEEGR to put the East of England at the heart of Europe’s key players in offshore wind industry. This has ensured that we have a greater profile and that there is a growing recognition of our skills and expertise. It is important to recognise that we will best achieve a reduction in costs for offshore wind farms by collaborating and sharing knowledge with our European neighbours’.
Judy Terry, Suffolk County Council’s Portfolio Holder for Greenest County, Economy and Skills said ‘We are delighted to have been involved in a European project which supported the offshore wind industry. It demonstrates the need to work with our European colleagues to overcome some of the challenges facing the industry particularly the need for a European super grid. This would enable the UK to export surplus energy produced by our offshore wind farms’.
POWER Cluster Project
www.power-cluster.net
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