Macquarie Green Energy Conference 2018

3 July 2019

Representatives of GE Renewable Energy, Siemens Gamesa, Vestas, National Grid, BNEF and Ørstedl shared insights on this dynamic market and trends of the sector. They also provided an update on the progress and plans for Macquarie’s establishment of the Green Investment Group, which has been in operation since August 2017. Green Investment Group is a leading global investor specialising in project delivery and portfolio management and investments in order to support growth in global green economy.

As the organisers rightly put it, the conference was the first one of its kind to provide a broad overview of renewable energy rather than concentrating on one particular technology type. The conference was organised in the form of panel discussions. There were 7 panel discussions which focused on different topics: the growing importance of development, engaging long term investors, investing in technology and infrastructure in today’s dynamic market, offshore energy, onshore wind, disruptive/clean technologies, and solar. The focus of the conference was not only on the UK, on the contrary, it was very globally orientated. Participating companies and speakers came from all around the world, representing Asia, Americas, Europe and Australia.

The keynote speakers were the Chief Financial Officer of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy Miguel Ángel López, Director Commercial Energy of Norsk Hydro Kristian Hauglum, Chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission Sir John Armitt CBE, FREng, FICE, President & CEO of GE Renewable Energy Jérôme Pécresse, Group President & CEO of Vestas Wind Systems A/S Anders Runevad, and many others. Organisers also provided us with documents with detailed information on the topics, companies and projects in discussion.

Apart from above mentioned, the event was also fruitful in terms of networking. Each one of us has met a number of professionals from various fields; investors, developers, government, NGOs.

The event was attended by 25 students from 5 Universities across the UK. Among the students were also 5 representatives of the University of Edinburgh Carbon Finance Masters Programme: Otar Antia, Shovana Talukdar, Marina Paldauf, Emilis Srage, and Cara Cao. We were actively involved in panel discussions and in fact were the only students who were raising questions during Q&A sessions.

We also appreciate the allowance of absence from the Climate Change and Environmental Policy lecture by Dr Sarah Ivory on the day of GIG conference. The recording for that lecture was available on Learn for students so that we were still able to catch up by watching it later. In addition to the content of course, the content of conference given by the speakers mentioned above, such as the different energy investment trends and the current energy market conditions, broadens our horizons and leads to a much deeper and more comprehensive understanding in the field of our major, Carbon Finance. The opportunity is very precious for students and it is fortunate for us to be fully supported by the Business School of the University of Edinburgh.

In conclusion, we have gained a lot of in-depth knowledge and new connections at event in question, contributing to our field expertise and improved soft skills. For some of us it was a first event of this kind: a conference in the field of energy, therefore a good opportunity to get the intel on renewable energy developments and efficiency improvements from the first hand. GIG conference allowed us to get a sense of our field and its importance from a different prospective. It represents a good addition to the academic lectures and knowledge we have gained during our time at the University of Edinburgh Business School.

Otar Antia, Jingyun Cara Cao, Shovana Talukdar, Marina Paldauf, Emilis Srage, MSc Carbon Finance students, attended the Green Energy Conference supported by funding from the Business School’s Santander initiative.