Merar Invites Its Members to the 2nd Offshore Wind Supply Chain Conference

Discussing various ways to create a greater value to our members we at Merar decided to introduce the new practice of keeping you regularly updated on business-related events and initiatives that may help you meet investors and partners or find out more about the trends and best practices in your industry.

Despite being an online service that aims at bringing the best of the investment world on the web, we are perfectly aware that there is still a lot going on offline that may be of interest and benefit to our members. Therefore, instead of providing a one-sided view of the picture, we prefer to act as real information brokers and keep you informed on what is happening out there in the real world.

The event we’d like to start with is a conference addressing the growing Renewable Energy sector, in particular, the Wind Energy segment.

Let us present you briefly the particular event, namely the 2nd Annual Offshore Supply Chain Conference organized by Wind Energy Update in partnership with The Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. The event will take place in London on the 28-29 February 2012 and will bring together procurement and project managers, investment and finance officers, and other businesspeople involved or interested in Wind Energy.

Merar got in contact with the organizer of the event, the business intelligence for the wind sector Wind Energy Update, to tell us more about it.

As they kindly shared with us, the conference will address cost reduction practices, procurement strategies, approaches to cope with high volume workload, farshore logistics, policies and regulations, investment & finance, and many more. 

Representatives of RES, Acciona, Vestas, Siemens, Societe Generale and Dexia will be exclusive speakers at the conference.

With regard to the investment needs of the sector, the director responsible for renewable energy projects with strong focus on offshore wind at the Franco-Belgian bank Dexia Clementine Tassin shared for Wind Energy Update the following: “The offshore wind industry needs extra cash, which might prove to be difficult due to the euro crisis (…) The two main conditions to see that happening are: 1. to attract more private investors and hedge funds and 2. to have clear and strong governmental support, including for the connection to the grid. The first point has a lot to do with understanding the notion of risk: investors are reluctant to get involved when the levels of risk associated are not clear or too high. The trick is to allocate the risk to the people who are willing to take it, achieving a better balance between risk and remuneration. In addition, government have to provide a clear and attractive regulatory framework; in some European countries, governments have taken action to create several mechanisms (regulatory regime, financing solution, etc...) to make sure projects would happen.  The industry has also to do its share and make sure that risks inherent to the industry are well understood and properly managed. This will help get fresh money from private investors and hedge funds.’’

If interested in the conference, you can get a brochure with more detailed information about it from the event organizers.

Image courtesy: Rae Allen, 2006, Flickr CC.