Live from Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference 2023

Welcome to the Live Blog!

#OEEC2023 in a nutshell. Enjoy the highlights of the event in this video:

This content is available after accepting the cookies.

Change cookie-settings View on Vimeo.

Thanks to all participants, partners, sponsors and media partners for making this event such a great success! See you next year on 26 & 27 November 2024!

Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference is almost coming to an end. The best way to celebrate these two days is with drinks at the Navingo stand.

And for the end of the second day, the Young IRO pub quiz is now taking place at The Stage, a great LEGO set is definitely worth competing for.

Neptune Energy expects the first offshore hydrogen to be produced as part of the PosHydon project in the second half of 2024.

This is according to Rene van der Meer, Head of New Energy Development at Neptune Energy, who presented the project on the stage.

“The Enhydra is combining the SCV and AHTS capabilities with the logistics capabilities,” Alain Wassink, Commercial Director at GustoMSC, said in his presentation.

Also, GustoMSC is officially launching the Enhydra series vessels tailored specifically for the floating offshore wind farms at the Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference.

You can read more about it in our recently published article here

Don Hoogendoorn, Co-founder & CTO at SolarDuck: the 2030 ambition is to deploy 1GW of floating solar per year in the north sea.

The second conference session ‘Multi-source offshore energy parks: paving the way’ included speakers: Daniel Buhagiar from FLASC B.V.; Allard van Hoeken from Oceans of Energy; Pim Somers from Stichting De Noordzee and Don Hoogendoorn from SolarDuck. The session was moderated by Simon Stark from DMEC (Dutch Marine Energy Centre).

Pim Somers, Project Manager Nature-Friendly Offshore Energy at the North Sea Foundation noted the importance of taking care of nature when speaking about multi-source offshore energy parks.

Somers states that increased offshore activity has an impact on the ecosystem in the North Sea and human activities have resulted in a biodiversity crisis and an ecosystem out of balance.

He highlights that when looking at multi-source offshore energy parks we should take an ecosystem approach. “Nature is your ally in the energy transition.”

International trade delegations are coming to Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference for its energy transition focus.

This year, we are happy to welcome trade missions from the Baltic states, Ireland, Poland, Ukraine, the UK and the US (Oceantic Network), who are here to promote their supply chains working in the renewable energy and other green industries.

At the session, Lex de Groot, Managing Director at Neptune Energy, said that hydrogen is a very important element in the energy transition and that we need it but that it has its hurdles.

“When you go through all the hurdles you learn very much, but in order to do so you need to start doing it,” De Groot said at today’s OEEC session ‘Hydrogen- the great connector’.
 
The session also saw Miriam Bardolet Pou, Director Energy Transition Fund at Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, Martin Kjall-Ohlsson, CEO at Vergia, and Eric Vennix, Partner Consulting at Deloitte providing insights into the emerging hydrogen market.
 
“Hydrogen will play a very important role especially in hard-to-abate sectors. A lot of offshore assets will be required to support the growth of hydrogen production,” Eric Vennix from Deloitte said. 
 
Vennix further added that the requirements necessary to make it happen include innovative financing mechanisms, public-private partnerships, new commercial or business models and supply chain collaboration.
 
Miriam Bardolet Pou said that “we need a leap of faith for the development of hydrogen projects and that we can learn a lot from the renewable energy industry on how to bring down costs.”

“Tidal energy is predictable and reliable and enables new locations for renewable energy,” said Maarten Berkhout, CEO of SeaQurrent, the developer of the TidalKite, during his presentation.

“Tidal energy is way more valuable than wind and solar, due to intermittency,” Berkhout said, adding that tidal is more comparable to nuclear in terms of output predictability.

Day 2 of Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference 2023 is about to kick off.

The second day of OEEC 2023 in Amsterdam is starting and, same as on Day 1 of the event, you can tune into the Live Blog for updates from the conference, The Stage, and the exhibition floor throughout the day.

Here is the Offshore Energy Day 1 – Video highlights!

This content is available after accepting the cookies.

Change cookie-settings View on Vimeo.

Navingo is hosting official networking drinks starting at 18:00.

Drop by until 21:00 to wrap up the first OEEC 2023 day with us, before we start another energetic day at RAI Amsterdam.

A packed room for the Offshore Wind: Business as (Un)usual session. 

The session opened with a presentation on the current challenges and opportunities within the offshore wind industry, delivered by Tore Guldbransoy of Rystad Energy. 

“We talk about challenges a lot, but what we have ahead of us is a great opportunity,” Renske Ytsma, Director Offshore Wind Development Continental Europe at RWE, said. “Let’s start delivering what we already have.” 

“The main challenge for offshore wind in the next decade will be how to integrate all of the electrons produced into the energy mix,” Frank Oomen, Head of Offshore Wind Benelux at bp, said. 

Ruben Dijkstra, Managing Director Benelux at Orsted has urged the governments to go beyond setting new capacity targets to provide more certainty for the developers. 

The reoccurring topic across the sessions today is standardization within the supply chain, but the opinions differ on whether standardization should be implemented by the governments, or if it would be better to leave it to the market to resolve the issue. 

When talking about the theme ‘Liebherr – A strong partner for the wind industry’, Armin Seidel said that in 5-10 years installations using cranes could happen from the office.

However, humans will never be replaced in installations as we are capable of reacting, especially important in offshore conditions, he added.

During his presentation on the Offshore Wind Auctions: Price and Quality session, Frank Oomen from BP said: “We need low-cost derisking to make progress.”

“System integration is what is needed to really make the next leap in offshore wind.”

“We need to keep innovating for many reasons; to deploy assets quickly, but also to ensure that we fabricate components in a fast way, that we have a positive impact on the environment, as well as creating a win-win scenario for other marine space users,” mentioned Daniel Santa Cruz, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Director from OW Ocean Winds.

During the second conference session ‘Renewable Energy: Innovate or accelerate session’ the panelists emphasized again the importance of #collaboration for #innovation even with non-obvious partners such as your competitors. Panelists included Wijtze van der Leij, Sales Manager Offshore Wind at Damen; Liz Burdock, President & CEO at Oceantic Network; Thomas Hjort, Director Innovation Offshore Wind at Vattenfall and Daniel Santa Cruz, Innovation & Entrepreneurship Director at Ocean Winds.

Liz Burdock, President and CEO at Oceantic Network points out that there has to come the time where the industry focuses less on constant innovations, and more on building the capacity.

“The vessels are rolling off the line, and they are already obsolete,” Liz Burdock said. “There has to come the time when we say enough is enough.”

“A healthy market framework is crucial to turn future wind farms into healthy projects, and making the industry healthy,” Ireen Geerbex, Director Market Development the Netherlands at Vattenfall, said.

”We need to get rid of financial criteria and introduce more qualitative criteria.”

The conference kicked off the first session entitled ‘Offshore Energy: Business for the better’ featuring a panel discussion between global energy players discussing how to make offshore energy projects nature-inclusive.

Speakers include: Marjolein Kelder from The Rich North Sea, Folkert Visser from Ecowende, Bas Nekeman from DEME Group and Ireen Geerbex from Vattenfall. The session was moderated by Paul de Leeuw.

Bas Nekeman, Business Unit Director Foundations Northern Europe at DEME Offshore: “In the future, we should not build wind farms, but rather nature parks with some turbines in it.”

Asked if she had a magic wand, what things she would change in the project selection process, Ireen Geerbex said: “I would increase the pre-selection criteria in the tenders. I would add an open-box criteria, that is where the magic happens. If you invite developers to bring their best proposals forward, we would all be impressed.”

Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference officially opens!

We welcome everyone to the 16th edition of our event, dedicated exclusively to the offshore energy and maritime sectors.

The opening session, presented by Managing Director, Navingo BV, Ernst Visser and Maurits Den Broeder, MD Offshore Energy & Executive Committee, Van Oord, is taking place.

“We are not yet there where we want to be. We need more collaboration and ignition,” said Mr. Visser.

“Mix of energy sources is what makes OEEC unique.”

It is clear that we are building the future of the offshore energy sector here. How will the sector develop with all the changes that are currently taking place?

During our event, a lot of new innovations will be presented. Also, the digitalization is set to be a hot topic in the industry with AI as a possible game changer – with AI anything is possible!

Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference 2023 (OEEC 2023) is minutes away from official opening.

The offshore energy industry is gathering at RAI Amsterdam as Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference will soon officially open its doors.

With two full days of discussions, insights and updates, there is the exhibition floor that will be home to companies and technologies that push the envelope in the offshore energy arena.

The ins and outs of the energy sector will be in focus as the industry behemoths such as BP, TotalEnergies, Shell, Vattenfall and Ørsted come together in a dynamic array of conference sessions.

The stands are ready and OEEC is already buzzing with activity, even though we are some half an hour away from the official opening.

Here you can read the most up-to-date information about the conference program, program on The Stage, side events and highlights from the exhibition floor.

You can expect plenty of information, presentations and innovations.