Sino-Norwegian Senior Forum on Offshore Wind held in Beijing

width_650.height_300.mode_FillAreaWithCrop.pos_Default.color_White

Innovation Norway and Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association (CREIA) jointly organized a senior forum on offshore wind at Kempinski Hotel in Beijing on January 4th. More than 80 stakeholders from Chinese and Norwegian companies and organizations attended the forum.

The purpose of the senior forum was to discuss how China can draw on the experiences from the offshore wind industry in Europe to accelerate the development of offshore wind domestically. The event also explored the characteristics of the Chinese and Norwegian offshore wind sectors, to identify areas of potential collaboration.

Mr. Knut Sørlie, Regional Director in China at Innovation Norway made the opening remarks emphasizing the importance of renewable energy as part of China’s shift towards more sustainable economic growth. Mr. Shi Pengfei, Vice President of CREIA stated that Norway is in the lead in the development of both maritime technology and offshore wind energy, and that China and Norway stand to gain a lot from increased cooperation. He referred to the forum as “a win-win seminar on offshore wind”.

Mr. Gao Hongbiao of Jiansu Longyuan Offshore Wind Power Co. and Mr. Lin Yifen at Shanghai Investigation Design & Research Institute were other prominent speakers from the Chinese industry, both playing a central part in China’s first offshore wind projects.

Several Norwegian stakeholders also gave presentations during the forum – e.g. Ms. He Wei from Statoil, Mr. Dayton Griffin from DNV- KEMA and Mr. Paul Kastmann from Innovation Norway. The speakers stressed that one of the main challenges within the offshore wind sector today is to reduce the cost of energy. This is important in order to make offshore wind power more competitive with other sources of energy. “Costs can be reduced through improved technology, lower capital investments and reduced operational expenditures – often related to poor quality and short maintenance intervals. If we can reduce equipment costs and increase reliability we have come a long way,” said Paul Kastmann, Sector Manager for Energy & Environment at Innovation Norway.

The speakers also took a closer look at similarities and complementarities between the Chinese and Norwegian offshore wind sectors. Both Chinese and Norwegian speakers expressed a wish for future collaboration.

The event concluded with a plenary session where the participants discussed the future development of the sector in China, as well as possible areas of future cooperation. Areas identified included offshore operations, assessment, project planning, foundations, vessels, electric infrastructure, maintenance, standards, certification and safety etc.

Following the plenary discussion, Innovation Norway and CREIA invited the forum participants to a dinner reception & book launch. Ms. He Wei, Principal Researcher for Offshore Wind at Statoil presented her book “Wind Lady of the North”, where she describes her “22 year wind journey” in Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands. The book was well received amongst the participants.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *