Almost 1,400 attendees, comprised of policymakers, renewable energy suppliers, and more than 350 buyers, gathered at the Beurs van Berlage, a former stock exchange turned conference centre, in the city centre for 3 days of discussions, networking, and doing business.
Opening the conference on day 1, Impact Director for the RE-Source Platform, Annie Scanlan, stated:
"The International Energy Agency (IEA) has recently said that oil, gas and coal demand will peak by 2030. With PPA prices dropping, electrification via renewables is an attractive offer for corporates. Globally, corporate buyers have added over 100GW to the grid. This underlines the critical role of everyone in this room in the energy transition."
SolarPower Europe’s Policy Director also joined the opening session, highlighting the importance of corporate renewable energy sourcing for Europe’s competitiveness:
"Ensuring sufficient access to cheap, green electricity is truly how we will keep industry competitive, and keep operations in Europe. Solar and wind energy, supported by flexible and reliable energy systems is how we, all of us in this room, will power Europe’s competitiveness and prosperity. The faster, the better."
The first panel discussion saw industry and policymakers come together to exchange on the changing policy landscape, and what it means for Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) in Europe.
Head of Unit for DG ENER, Lukasz Kolinski, emphasised that PPAs are a key tool for helping Europe meet its climate and renewable energy targets:
“Our policy can’t be more supportive of PPAs; we really want PPAs to flourish. We are reforming the Electricity Market Design because we want less focus on short-term, voltaile markets, and more focus on long-term stable markets. We see that the PPA market is growing very quickly in some Member States, and not in others - we want to see it everywhere. We want Member States to include them in their 2030 plans, and we want Member States to support de-risking tools to bring PPAs to more buyers."
After a fun celebration at the after party on Thursday evening, Friday morning got off to another great start. Sessions throughout the day covered topics such as tips for accelerating PPA negotiations, securing CFO approval, renewable hydrogen, and national market deep dives.
Our Policy Advisor, Jan Osenberg, gave a presented an overview of the European rooftop solar market, along with the barriers and opportunities for businesses.
Closing this year’s conference, our CEO Walburga Hemetsberger summed up the energy over the previous days:
“Thanks to Annie and the whole team for making this event possible - the biggest resource event ever with 1400 participants and 350 buyers. It very much shows how much corporate sourcing has grown since we started in 2017 - there was around 1.5 GW of PPAs - we are now at 8 GW. This is exactly what we need to get to the renewables future we need - to reach our target of 42.5% RES - or hopefully even 45% - in EU energy systems by 2030. To ensure we have energy security, industry thrives, household energy bills are affordable and we tackle climate change.”
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