By Joanne Patterson, Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University and Simon Sjenitzer, EnergyREV Industrial Roving Champion WYG
On October 1st 2020, EnergyREV held our first ‘pilot’ industry focussed virtual workshop which included participants from almost all EnergyREV workpackages and a small group of targeted industry representatives.
Whilst there had already been a good level of industry participation at individual workpackage level, our intention was to directly engage with industry at programme level in order to better understand how our work could potentially benefit innovation development from inception through to commercial exploitation.
Hosted by Simon Sjenitzer, EnergyREV Industry Roving Champion, and Joanne Patterson, EnergyREV Knowledge Management, Engagement and Dissemination Lead, the workshop involved a series of short, sharp presentations aimed to:
- inform leading energy industry stakeholders of EnergyREVs work;
- obtain a better understanding of industry needs and interests;
- understand how EnergyREV findings may be of value to industry;
The feedback we received from the industry representatives was very supportive and compelling. Simon and Joanne have prepared a report summarising the conclusions. Key insights include:
- The financial benefits of SLES need to be clearer to enable faster change from different stakeholders – investors and industry.
- Reliable information is needed to help inform the decision-making process – economic, environmental and social.
- More clarity on the linkages between local and national scales are needed.
- There seems to be too much emphasis on the user – there needs to be more focus on the supply chain/industry.
- Industry needs more visibility and events like today are exactly what we need.
The pilot highlighted that working with smaller groups enabled a level of intimacy where attendees felt comfortable to provide feedback that is of value to all involved. A mix of targeted workshops are now being planned that will involve subgroups of industry interspersed with wider industry events involving larger groups with live interactive sessions to enable intimate discussions to take place.
If you would like to be involved, please get in touch with us at info@energyrev.org.uk