WindEnergy Hamburg is the world’s largest sourcing pool for equipment engineering. Providers of everything from planning and project design to installation, operation and maintenance, and through to marketing, certification and financing showcase their services.
The trade fair had initially been postponed from September to December after it quickly became clear that holding a leading international trade event with exhibitors and visitors from 100 countries was going to be an impossibility this year. In response, the event organisers have reinvented the entire concept of the trade fair and have got more deeply involved in the ongoing transformation of the exhibition sector, at a significantly accelerated pace.
“WindEnergy Hamburg this year will be the first in a series of purely digital events organised by Hamburg Messe und Congress” said Bernd Aufderheide, President and CEO Hamburg Messe und Congress GmbH. “Within a very short period of time, we developed a new digital platform that includes two live streams. It will turn the world's biggest meeting place of the wind industry into a permanent global marketplace for the sector”.
From 1st December 2020, and well beyond the duration of the event, WindEnergy Hamburg will offer exhibitors and industry visitors many new features, enabling them to get informed, share ideas and experiences, do business and attract new customers.
From 1st to 4th December 2020 WindEnergy Hamburg will be broadcasting two all-day live streams. In its paid ‘WindTV Premium Stream’, WindEurope will broadcast an updated edition of its Premium Conference while the ‘WindTV Open Stream’ will feature a free programme put together jointly by the European wind energy association WindEurope, the Global Wind Energy Council GWEC, and Hamburg Messe und Congress.
All programmes will be available on-demand following the live broadcasts.
Major manufacturers, such as Vestas, MHI Vestas Offshore Wind A/S, Enercon, Siemens Gamesa, Nordex Group, eno energy, CRRC Wind Power and Ming Yang Smart Energy, as well as well-known suppliers, including Winergy, NGC and ZF Windpower, along with global developers like wpd, Engie and EDF, have confirmed their participation.
“WindEurope’s live WindTV stream will include the annual WindEurope conference and a whole load of other features - videos, interviews, entertainment” said Giles Dickson, WindEurope CEO. “There’ll be top speakers from industry, government, finance and technology - and from other walks of life including music and sport. All in a range of different formats. It’s absolutely not your usual Zoom webinars!”
WindTV Premium will cover a wide range of topics, from the development of global wind markets and challenges related to permitting procedures and community engagement, to hydrogen from wind power, to technologies, digitalisation, electrification and system integration, and through to innovations for onshore and offshore wind and challenges facing the supply chain of the wind energy industry.
The list of participants includes such names as IEA executive director Fatih Birol, the European Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, the Chairman of BASF SE, Dr. Martin Brudermüller, as well as Fridays for Future activists.
The free-of-charge ‘WindTV Open Stream’, produced jointly by WindEurope, GWEC and Hamburg Messe und Congress, will likewise broadcast for four days from three studios in Brussels, Shoreham Port (UK) and Hamburg. The programming will include news and reports on the latest developments in business, policy-making and technology: daily Live Business News, GWEC Global Wind Briefs, Exhibitor Talks, VDMA Industry Talks, panel discussions about hydrogen, electrification and system integration, sessions on technologies and community engagement, as well as the viewer forum ‘What people ask’.
GWEC's daily Global Wind Briefs from the Shoreham Port Studio in the UK will take a look at some of the most exciting markets for wind power in the world, such as India’s, Latin America’s, Africa’s and Asia's emerging offshore wind markets. The list of renowned speakers includes Sumant Sinha, Chairman and Managing Director at ReNew Power, Raghuram Natarajan, CEO at APAC Mainstream Renewable Power, Niels Steenberg, Executive General Manager Offshore APAC at Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, Alfonso Blanco, Executive Secretary at OLADE and Gonzalo Muñoz, High Level Climate Action Champion, COP25.
In “Exhibitor Talks” the companies participating in WindEnergy Digital will be able to present their innovations, products and services to the entire world. This digital stage in the WindTV Open Stream is the updated version of the popular ‘Speakers’ Corner’.
On three days, the WindTV OpenStream will highlight the "Green Hydrogen" theme as previously planned for the exhibition halls. The H2Insights programme will present new H2 business models, explain government regulations, and let viewers witness live discussions about this highly sought after chemical element and the global development of a new hydrogen industry.
Visiting the ‘virtual trade fair’ on the digital platform is free of charge. The new website presented by WindEnergy Hamburg will continue to operate as an industry marketplace after the end of the event, featuring the participants' company profiles along with comprehensive content, including product videos, webinars, white papers and up-to-the-day event news.
“We purposely did not build any virtual 3D exhibition stands because WindEnergy Hamburg is far too large for that” added Bernd Aufderheide. “Our platform is a great way for participants to present themselves and highlight their products and services. Companies from all segments of the wind industry’s value chain have registered, which means every participant will be able to identify and contact suitable partners to do business with”.
All exhibitor profiles will go live on 30 November 2020.
The website and the app also provide a variety of options for participants to make contact with each other. The smart search feature with Autosuggest allows virtual ‘visitors’ to find specific providers or products, learn about key topics, or locate experts they would like to contact. Based on the registration information visitors have entered in the ‘MyEvent’ section and their previous interactions on the digital platform, the smart matchmaking algorithm of the WindEnergy Hamburg app will automatically suggest relevant topics and people. If a user is interested in one of the suggested contacts, they can directly approach them or save the contact information in their list of favourites.
In the Highlights section the platform collects information on selected wind industry topics. For example, "H2Insights" addresses the potential of wind power for the production of 'green' hydrogen and how it can drive the necessary energy and mobility transformation. The Speakers' Corner collects the Exhibitors Talks for on-demand viewing, providing at-a-glance access to all the discussions of the latest technologies and solutions. Start-ups are invited to present innovative solutions for the wind industry for discussion, from today's ready-to-use products to visionary ideas for tomorrow. The “Job Route” takes visitors directly to the many professional opportunities the wind industry has to offer, including job openings and professional or advanced training programmes.
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