The farming and landowning community has always been warmly welcomed at All-Energy, the UK’s largest renewable and low carbon energy exhibition and conference. This year’s event at Glasgow’s SEC on 2 and 3 May is not exception and sees a packed 90-minute free-to-attend conference session specifically designed for farmers and landowners.
“Naturally many exhibitors will be looking forward to meeting these important groups of individuals, and this year, as a special introduction, there is a ‘by invitation’ ‘Meet the Farmers’ networking reception for farmers, and other relevant visitors and exhibitors,” explains All-Energy’s Event Director, Jonathan Heastie of Reed Exhibitions who own and organise the annual event. “This follows the dedicated farming/landowners conference session, with its theme ‘Energy – New approaches to enhancing income streams’ starting at 11:00 on Thursday 3 May.
“The All-Energy team knows that farmers are always looking to innovate, especially now with potential risks to subsidies through Brexit, so their conference session this year will focus on solutions including heat pumps, woodfuel, solar, energy storage and hydrogen that would have seemed unusual just a handful of years ago when it was wind, wind and more wind, plus perhaps some bioenergy and solar. We look forward to welcoming the farming/ landowning community to the exhibition, conference, and lunch, and to their feedback”
Satisfying innovative farmers
Chaired by Jim Campbell, Team Leader and Project Manager at SAC Consulting the session will see his colleague John Farquhar, Senior Renewables Consultant at SAC the first to take to the lectern exploring ‘Enhancing income streams from renewables’; next will be Neil Harrison, Director, re:heat speaking about the woodfuel supply chain, including the economics and increasing ‘knot’ of regulations about what defines sustainable wood for RHI-type boilers.
From wood to solar – ‘Making use of that south-facing unproductive field’ comes next, with Andrew Dempster, Business Development Manager at Forster Energy focussing, naturally, on solar. Sonya Bedford, Head of Energy at Stevens Scown LLP will then speak about ‘Energy storage for landowners’, something very much of topical interest.
David Smith, Managing Director, Cloffrickford Renewable Energy & Skelmonae Windfarm Ltd is an advocate of renewables. A farmer for over 50 years operating wind turbines for nine years and involved in a recent venture where the Formartine Partnership was given a 20% share in an additional turbine site, his attention has now turned to hydrogen.
“I feel hydrogen has great potential on several fronts for the rural community,” he explains. “Indeed, I have been studying the potential production of hydrogen and ammonium nitrate for at least eight years. Aberdeen City has asked us to supply them with hydrogen for their bus fleet. It’s something we have been working on; our solution has now gone out to tender, and we have submitted an application.”
The panel discussion which involves the audience at the end of the session, includes Keith McWhinnie, Lead Policy Official – Agricultural Climate Change, at the Scottish Government. Then, it is off to the networking lunch!
There’s more to hear and see
With eleven parallel conference streams and some 450 speakers representing the four ‘pillars’ of All-Energy – renewable generation; low carbon heating; energy efficiency; and low carbon transport (this via the co-located Smart Urban Mobility Solutions (SUMS) conference and exhibition) there are many other relevant conference sessions for the farming/landowning community.
These include those on various forms of renewable generation including hydro, onshore wind, bioenergy, and solar; on energy efficiency; community and local energy; low carbon heat; energy storage; sustainable transport and much more. Full conference details are at www.all-energy.co.uk/en/Conference/Conference-Overview/Introduction/
The large exhibition with some 300 exhibiting companies provides good hunting ground for farmers and landowners eager to talk directly with manufacturers, or their agents; and once again, there are dedicated sector-specific trails to follow to make hunting out the right supplier from onshore wind to energy storage, solar to run-of-river hydro; heating to energy efficiency easy for visitors. This year an ‘Innovation’ trail is an addition which could pay dividends for those farmers eager to innovate.
At the end of the first day (2 May), discussion and business can continue in a relaxed atmosphere at the Giant Networking Evening held at the Glasgow Science Centre, just a short walk from the SEC.
All-Energy and the co-located SUMS 2018 transport event with low carbon vehicles and infrastructure in focus, are free to attend for all with relevant business/professional interests and that most certainly includes the farming community.
Information on all aspects of All-Energy, as well as free online registration, is at www.all-energy.co.uk
ENDS
Caption: Meeting experts in their field and spending time with them is what exhibitions and conferences are all about.
Notes to Editors:
Editors: Press registration is at https://all-energy18-press.reg.buzz/
All-Energy, the history: All-Energy, the UK’s largest renewable and low carbon energy and clean growth exhibition and conference has been held annually since 2001; the first SUMS was held in 2017. Conference presentations from 2017 are available to download free of charge on the All-Energy and SUMS websites.
Editors – if you would like your publication to be an All-Energy 2018/SUMS 2018 (or a 2019) media partner: please contact Charlotte Napier at charlotte.napier@reedexpo.co.uk or on +44 (0)20 8910 7092
Further press information is available from: Judith Patten @ JPPR – judithpatten@JPPR.uk.com Tailor-made articles can be written to your required content/word count and deadline, as can fulsome show previews featuring exhibits and conference topics of particular relevance to your readership