Opergy and energy sector body EEEGR organised a ‘speed dating’ networking event last month for East Anglia’s offshore wind supply chain in east England.
The event involved more than 95 companies conducting over 185 individual meetings at the OrbisEnergy innovation hub in Lowestoft.
It focussed on encouraging supply chain collaboration and created an opportunity for suppliers to meet some of the sector’s major buyers including Vattenfall, GE Renewable Energy, Innogy and SSE Renewables.
Opergy project consultant Sarah Niddrie-Webb said: “Encouraging supply chain collaboration presents a major opportunity for growth in the region.
“It allows smaller and innovative suppliers a real chance to meet with potential clients, showcasing their products and services to buyers whom they would often struggle to get in front of otherwise.”
Innogy Renewables UK project procurement manager Ben Donald said: “This event brings together regional and local suppliers. As a procurement manager, it is important to meet suppliers on a regular basis, finding out about new products and services, projects they’ve been working on and how they could help us on our project locations.”
James Fisher and Sons head of sales Ben Hooker said: “For me, the opportunity to come and meet new companies and view innovative products, is a great chance to engage with the supply chain.
“Otherwise you can end up in echo chambers believing that you know what’s available on the market. This gives a great opportunity to really engage.”
Similar offshore wind supply chain match making sessions have been held across five of the leading offshore wind clusters in Europe over recent months through the EU-funded Inn2POWER project – Innovation to Push Offshore Wind Energy Regions.
Inn2POWER is a consortium of leading offshore wind clusters across Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.
The programme aims to drive supply chain collaboration and help businesses to identify new international markets. Opergy leads the UK team.
In total, 12 events have been held across partner countries delivering more than 1760 one-to-one meetings.
Each event averages over 120 supply chain participants, with the most recent session part of the flagship WindEurope Offshore 2019 conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Future events in 2020 are already planned for the Belgium Offshore Days 2020 in March; EEEGR’s SNS2020 Conference in Norwich in April and at Windforce 2020 in Bremerhaven, Germany, in May.
Niddrie-Webb added: “The Inn2POWER project is truly a transnational collaboration that supports greater networks for better business.
“Opergy leads the consortium on mapping the European supply chain and well placed to help EU businesses wanting to explore the UK market, and East Anglian firms looking to grow and expand into Europe.”
Opergy is based in Lowestoft having been launched in October 2019 by industry experts Kim Duffy and Johnathan Reynolds, following a management buy-out of their previous consulting firm Nautilus.