It was great to see All-Energy at Aberdeen’s exhibition centre absolutely booming. As a veteran of these events, from the kick-off in 2001, I had the real sense of an industry which is on the verge of something big.
For the first time, the show spilled into two exhibition halls. The numbers were well up on previous years and the seminars ranged from busy to packed. Recession? What recession?
As the indefatigable Judith Patten – of organiser Media Generation Events – says, it is fascinating to have watched some subject areas grow from a few years ago, when there were 30 or 40 people in the room. They were all “on the circuit” and knew each other. It is no longer like that.
This does not just apply to renewables. There was a huge level of interest in anything to do with carbon capture and storage, reflecting a belief that this is an area in which something really is going to happen in the next few years, and an awful lot of companies not 100 miles from Aberdeen could be part of it.
The crucial point is that low-carbon energy is now a truly global industry and the big prize is to put Britain at the centre of it. All the technologies represented in Aberdeen last month have potential application around the world. And that explains another notable feature of All-Energy – just how international it has become.
Unless my cross-section of conversations was unrepresentative, there seemed to be far more overseas presence than in previous years. Indeed, it had more the feel of Offshore Europe than the hitherto more domestic younger cousin.
Part of the reason for this was that UKTI, the Government’s trade promotion body, brought no fewer than 29 inward missions to Aberdeen for All-Energy. That is a formidable contribution towards the success of the show and to putting it in the big league of international fairs for low-carbon technologies.
I was also encouraged to see how many companies associated with the offshore oil&gas industry were promoting their wares in the context of these other energy sectors. It was a reminder of why Aberdeen has been absolutely the right place for All-Energy to grow and develop – even if it has taken a few years for that point to be confirmed.
For as long as I have been around, the sensible concept of transferring the skills of the North Sea into other energy technologies has been talked about. I have made but a few speeches on that theme myself. But the process tended to stop and start according to the oil price. If the basic business was booming, why look too hard at diversification?
Yet it does, of course, make sense for companies which have a huge level of expertise in offshore oil&gas to look at the options – particularly as the renewables emphasis moves offshore. Those who are used to working offshore and subsea, with all the hazards and special skills involved, are the obvious candidates for transferring into the emerging technologies.
All of this fits in extremely well with the thinking behind UK Energy Excellence, the latest attempt – backed by both Government and the private sector – to create a UK energy brand which will support companies as they try to internationalise their businesses and enter new markets where the imprimatur of Government support can be very helpful. Indeed, I was at All-Energy to help launch the UK Energy Excellence website in my role as a board member of that organisation. I have long enjoyed the combination of UK energy expertise and trade promotion, so it is nice to be involved in this way. The great thing is that successful exporting turns straight into jobs at home.
For the low-carbon technologies, parallels with the oil&gas industry are striking, but also carry their own warnings.
Hundreds of companies – including many which were at All-Energy – turned themselves into exporters out of necessity, particularly when the oil price fell to $10 a barrel in the late-1990s. There seemed to be little future in the North Sea so they had to look elsewhere to survive.
That, essentially, is why there are companies which grew out of the North Sea in every corner of the Earth where oil&gas resources are being developed. The same thing can happen with other technologies – but there first has to be a stimulus to help launch it.
And the biggest stimulus of all is the existence of a domestic market.
Within Scotland and the UK as a whole, application of these renewable and other low-carbon technologies continues to develop far too slowly. We have too few projects, which means too few commercial wins for the companies.
That, in turn, inhibits the internationalisation of what we have to sell. At the first All-Energy in 2001, there were 50 companies exhibiting and just 350 visitors. The vast growth epitomised by last month’s show demonstrates how rapidly industry has latched on to the scale of the potential.
But to make it happen, we must now accelerate the pace of progress at home in order to make us leaders the world over.