Associate Partner

Associate Partner

The All-Energy show has found itself a new home for its annual event. Housed in the Glasgow SECC under the shadow of the giant Finnieston crane, a disused cantilever crane- a relic of the city’s engineering past, the UK’s flagship renewable energy event presented the future of energy in this country.

Having moved from its old home in Aberdeen, the general feeling was it has been a positive move making the show more accessible to the majority.

There were a great range of seminars on all aspects of the industry as well as “meet the buyers” fairs to stimulate new relationships and business.

The wind industry was very well represented and driving up to Glasgow from Liverpool it is clear to see the abundance of onshore wind north of the border. However, with the results of the general election becoming clear, there may be some major hurdles for this industry to jump in order to proceed.

Biomass and large scale Anaerobic Digestion companies were flying the flag for renewable heating. There were plenty of manufacturers, distributors and installers showing off a great variety of shiny biomass boilers both for domestic use and large scale commercial applications. One company were even displaying them on the top deck of a converted double-decker bus!

There is a degree of anxiety among the people I spoke to in regard to how the future of RHI will pan out and affect the industry. There will be a decision at the end of this month on the scale of degressions, particularly on domestic and non-domestic small scale biomass, that will come into play on 1st July. That being said, the renewables industry as a whole has had to deal with plenty of legislation changes in the past and generally people working in the biomass sector seem to be very positive about the future. It is developing into an established sector and the hope is for sustainable growth.

What did strike me as being very interesting was the lack of heat pump presence. None of the major manufactures had stands and distributors decided a push on biomass boilers was going to be more affective for them. Numbers of new installations remain relatively low for heat pumps and legislation needs to change in order for numbers to increase. RHI payments aren’t enough to really kick start the growth of the sector, especially in new build properties where they should be getting installed as a matter of course.

Generally it was a very worthwhile show, particularly for the industry in Scotland. Next up is Intersolar in Munich next month. Please get in touch if you are going to be there and we can grab a coffee, ross.hoare@hyperionsearch.co.uk