RECORD NUMBERS ATTENDED
With over 700 delegates  each day and a record of 53 exhibiting organisations this year's Scottish Offshore Wind + Supply Chain event was our largest and most successful to date.

Scotland has some of the most stretching renewable energy targets in Europe, with ambitions to generate the equivalent of 100 per cent of annual electricity demand renewables by 2020.  The bulk of the supply is set to come from offshore wind over the next decade and beyond, with as much as 10 Gigawatts of projects in the pipeline round our shores and the potential for up to £7 billion of additional investment bringing 48,000 jobs to Scotland. Building on our long industrial heritage and offshore engineering expertise, Scotland is well placed to capitalise on Europe’s growing offshore wind industry right across the supply chain.

Scotland has seen spectacular progress over the last few years, with an acceleration of investment in the offshore wind sector in particular, yet significant challenges lie between us and the objectives set out in the Scottish Government’s 2020 Routemap for Renewable Energy.

This year’s Scottish Offshore Wind Conference debated, discussed and defined the way forward in the key decisions around our energy mix:

• Cutting costs and affordability
• Attracting capital and the impact of market reform
• Closing the supply chain gap
• Consenting projects and environmental sustainability
• Connecting to the grid
• Technological innovation

The conference and networking exhibition included a mixture of plenary sessions, workshop style discussions, presentations and quick fire updates.  It also provided exhibiting organisations with the chance to update on their own activities in our pilot of the exhibition showcase, which proved to be a great success and will be encourperated into the 2013 Offshore Event.