How can ‘wind’ help to electrify transport, heating and industry? That was the focus of ‘Electric City 2021’, the ‘motto’ of the annual WindEurope Event in Copenhagen. An event, two weeks ago, with 400 exhibitors in the halls and 70 conference sessions. An interesting business and network event: over 8,000 people were there, and 11 ministers of different countries took part in this event. During these three days one could get a good overview of the current innovations. As the wind energy sector is a rapidly evolving sector, it is good to stay on top of things. And after two years of not having any large events, it was great to be able to come together. As many exhibitors mentioned – ‘one can’t do business during an online meeting’.

The central message of the event was that electrification is the cheapest and cleanest way to decarbonise our energy system. Most processes that today rely on fossil fuels can transition to renewable electricity using existing technologies. Wind energy will play a central role in this.

As Belgian Offshore Cluster we aim to put the activities of our members on the map, internationally. We supported them to participate in our booth on the exhibition. We were proud to show the internatonal public our knowledge and expertise.  During these three days our booth had a lot of visitors, the ‘flow’ during the event was good, and we were very proud that our own Minister of Energy, Tinne Van der Straeten, did the opening speech on our Belgian Beer Night. After she had visited all our members, she spoke of the urgency of energy transition, the need for cooperation and the importance of this kind of events.

Over the past years our Belgian Beer Night has become quite legendary. Again it was well-attended by many interesting partners, the beer flowed, and the glasses of ‘Brugse zot’ and ‘Moat’ brought many people together.