On the 8th of November our Sales & Marketing Manager Roisin Mc Cormack spoke at the European Commission Hydropower Conference held in Brussels. The aim of the event was to examine the impact that EU R&D funding has had on advancing and improving Hydropower technologies and processes over the past 20 years. It was a very valuable day with a lot of honest and open discussion about the issues and blockers currently being experienced by developers, researchers and project managers and ideas on how these can be tackled.
There were great presentations by Piotr Tulej (Head of Unit for Renewables Energy sources with the European Commission), Koen Rademaekers (Trinomics), Simon Morris (Ricardo Energy & Environment), Ioannis Kougias (Joint Research Centre), François Avellan (Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne EPFL), Marko Hočevar (University of Ljubljana), Emmanuel Grenier (International Commission On Large Dams: ICOLD), Hannah Smith (https://www.scottishrenewables.com/) and Thomas Schlecker (Policy Officer for Renewable energy sources with the European Commission).
Roisin presented our project highlighting the impacts we have had as well as the benefits of receiving EU funding. It is refreshing to see workshops like this one where transparent discussion can lead to real advancements and improvements for future funding. There are so many exciting and untapped opportunities for Hydro and participating in events like this gives us hope for a very bright future!