Pedal & Shift attending World Hydrogen Summit

We are looking forward to participating at the World Hydrogen Summit 2024, being held in Rotterdam, Netherlands May 13-15. It will be great to hear more about the latest projects, solutions and developments.

The event was great last year, with a significant Canadian delegation, and it seems that it will be ever stronger this year.

At this event, we will be representing Angler Solutions and Brook Construction.

Angler Solutions is an innovation-driven consulting firm with international experience providing strategic advisory and project delivery services across our evolving energy and ocean technology sectors. 

Brook Construction is a company based in Corner Brook, NL, Canada. They provide complete construction services in Newfoundland and Labrador for commercial and industrial clients, including full turnkey packages for new construction and renovations. 

Both Ian Froude and Stephanie Granville from Pedal & Shift will be attending the summit and exhibition.

Reach out with the contact information here to discuss our clients’ expertise and opportunities for collaboration.

Let’s connect at the event!

Newfoundland and Labrador Booth at the Hydrogen Summit Exhibition

Rotterdam Ahoy, conference centre from 2023 Summit (also location of the 2024 event).

Preparing your business for onshore and offshore wind-hydrogen opportunities

In my last blog post, I shared information on the scale of wind energy development in Europe. You can read that here. The following post reflects on that conference and the discussions happening in Atlantic Canada about the potential wind-hydrogen industry. Based on those reflections, this post shares factors that your business should be considering in preparation for this new growth sector in our region. 

Big-Picture and Small Details

It is important that companies in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia look at the big picture and the small details when it comes to this new and growing sector. The conversation to date is on the grand scale of these projects and how much work may be possible.

It appears that a few, but not that many are taking that big picture and translating it into actionable strategies and operations to take advantage of this new opportunity. To bring that big picture into focus, it is important to consider the many possible services and products that are required: some are obvious like building construction and transportation; but also less obvious like the supply of the lubricants for turbine maintenance, or bird or bat detection equipment or services, just to name a couple. There is then of course, the indirect opportunities that arise like expanded restaurants and hotels, or rental properties. 

As this sector evolves and grows, a narrow focus for services may also be of great value as there may be many projects to contribute to. We know of five projects now proposed in NL and two in Nova Scotia; but over the next 20-30 years, many more are possible considering the resource, scale of the need, and the size of Atlantic Canada.

Time Scale

When companies are considering opportunities, I encourage them to consider time scale as well; construction of these facilities will take years, which provides significant opportunity. However, operations and maintenance will be an ongoing need of these operations over decades.

Onshore and Offshore

The projects currently being promoted in NL are primarily onshore. In NS, they are talking about  onshore projects, and are also promoting offshore wind projects. These offshore wind projects are either wind-to-hydrogen, or due to Nova Scotia’s goal of reducing their coal usage, it also means supplying the electricity grid for use in the province.

In Bilbao, at Wind Europe, I attended an event hosted by Net Zero Atlantic and within the event, the organizers and the Nova Scotia government were promoting the prospects of significant offshore wind development in Nova Scotia.

The Federal government is completing the regional assessment for the offshore currently. You can see their preliminary report here for NL and here for NS.

Figure 25. Preliminary Offshore Wind Licensing Areas from the Interim Report: Preliminary Offshore Wind Licensing Area Recommendations
“This map is a depiction of the preliminary offshore wind licencing areas, which resulted from the removal of all the above constraints. The map additionally depicts which of these areas may be suitable for technologies designed for depths up to 60 m, 60-80 m, and 80-300 m. The Committee is providing these preliminary offshore wind licencing areas to Ministers in the Interim Report. These areas are subject to change as the Regional Assessment progresses. All datasets utilized to produce this map can be found in Appendix F.”

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Within 5 years, will we see the beginning of the offshore wind industry in Atlantic Canada as well as onshore? What opportunities does that provide for the services and products your company could provide directly to this sector, but also the many indirect services that are necessary in a new industry?

Comparison to the early 90’s oil sector opportunity

I’ve heard some business leaders describe this as what it felt like in the early 90’s when the oil industry was beginning. Of course, there is a possibility these projects won’t get to financial investment decisions and construction. However, optimistic pragmatism, with a hint of skepticism doesn’t mean that it’s not valuable to consider the possibility and prepare your business. With that in mind, if you reflect on that comparison, what might it mean for your company 2 years, 5 years, and 10 years from now, and how will you be prepared for this?

Pedal & Shift Consulting specializes in providing strategy and executing business development tailored to the needs of technical and engineering services companies in the energy and construction sectors. We focus on the renewable energy sector and being a bridge between Atlantic Canada and Europe.

Wind in Europe: Industry Scale

Figures and data noted below come from the Wind Europe document ‘Wind Energy in Europe: 2023 Statistics and the outlook for 2024-2030.’

I am on my way back from attending the Wind Europe conference (Bilbao, Spain, March 2024). One major reason I found it valuable is because it offered a glimpse into the future of what is possible in Atlantic Canada for the onshore and offshore wind sectors. 

Of course, the scale of the industry across the European continent would be difficult to match, but Atlantic Canada has incredibly rich resources and a very large geographic area. So what might be possible?

In this post I am going to share information about the scope of the wind sector in Europe. Later this week, I am going to share another post on what businesses in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia should be considering when preparing for this new industry.

The bar chart below shows the new wind installations in Europe for each year, for the past 10 years. 

Notice that the Y-axis (on the left) shows GW. As a comparison, Muskrat Falls generates 0.824 GW (824 MW), the Upper Churchill in Labrador 5.428 GW (5428 MW). 

All of the existing wind installations in Europe have the capacity to generate 272 GW of wind power (238 GW is onshore, 34 GW is offshore).

An average existing onshore wind turbine generates 4.5 MW, and the average existing offshore wind turbine generates 8.0 MW. To generate the 18 GW installed in 2023, using mostly 4.5 GW onshore turbines, means there were a lot of turbines installed in 2023.

Decommissioning
This industry has been happening in Europe for 20+ years, so much so that they decommissioned 736 MW of existing turbines in 2023. You can repower turbines at the end of their life (if the conditions and designs are adequate), but some are decommissioned because some of the components of those existing turbines are reaching the end of their useful life. For example, it may mean that the tower wouldn’t support a modern nacelle and blades.

Electricity Generation

Much of the generation in Europe is for electricity generation, with their continent wide goals of energy independence and climate action goals. 

The image below shows the total capacity of wind (onshore and offshore), and the percentage of electricity demand satisfied by electricity generated by wind turbines. These are significant numbers.

They have very ambitious goals set for added wind generated electricity in Europe - with a goal to add 260 GW before 2030.

A small number of the projects proposed in Europe are meant for hydrogen generation - as is proposed in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia - for which the project developers are proposing to build hydrogen facilities. In Europe these are being proposed to be built both onshore and offshore (similar looking structure as an oil platform, with a structure above the surface, but the support sitting on the seabed).

To add 260 GW of capacity in Europe, and the even larger goals around the world will require an immense effort - putting strains on supply chains and labour, but also means there will be demand for the expertise of operating in harsh ocean weather that many in the offshore oil sector have.

Conclusion

As is clear from these numbers, this is a massive industry in Europe - and due to the natural resources, deep water ports and a skilled workforce - has great potential in Atlantic Canada. What needs to be understood by business leaders, to truly understand the opportunity, is all the components within the sector: construction, engineering, transportation, operations and maintenance, and many more - and to understand each of these in depth and detail. Not to even mention (in this blog post) the hydrogen-ammonia components of the proposed projects.

With that understanding, we will be able to more closely see what opportunities there will be for businesses in rural and urban areas of our region.

Europe has been building turbines at scale for many years. If Atlantic Canada moves with ambition, what can you foresee here 20 years from now? For that envisioned future to become reality, we have to start building. What will this mean for your business? In a few days I will share another post on factors to consider to prepare your business to service this new sector.

You can read the full report from Wind Europe here.

Pedal & Shift Consulting specializes in providing strategy and executing business development tailored to the needs of technical and engineering services companies in the energy and construction sectors. We focus on the renewable energy sector and being a bridge between Atlantic Canada and Europe.

Dispatch from Wind Europe

I am attending a conference, Wind Europe 2024, this week. It’s being held in Bilbao, a beautiful city on the northern coast of Spain.

There are thousands of delegates here, primarily from Europe, and just a handful from Canada.

The first day has been fascinating, motivating, and productive.

I came here for two key reasons: (1) to represent a client of Pedal & Shift who we are helping pursue work in the European market; and a second client who I am helping look ahead on what they can offer the sector in NL; (2) to get a granular and tangible understanding of what the sector has the potential to become in Atlantic Canada in the next decade.

On this second point, I believe Atlantic Canada - Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia especially - have massive potential to grow a new industry. An industry that produces renewable energy, is export driven, and highly skilled. And very importantly, that helps reduce the degree of our changing climate.

Pedal & Shift is focused on bridging the gap between technical companies (whether they be construction, engineering, or technical services) and this new sector. I believe this is done through strategic actions and learning from those who are years ahead in this sector. Hence, why I am here in Spain.

Topics today included: optimizing energy output based on market electricity price and wind speed; reducing wake impacts on adjacent turbines, blade reuse and recycling, nature-based solutions for protecting under-water electricity cables, and much more. There is tremendous opportunity for Atlantic Canada to contribute to this sector - both by contributing our expertise in Europe itself, and by developing our own wind industry.

It’s just been one day of the Wind Europe 2024 conference so far, and I look forward to what I learn about tomorrow, and who I will meet.