Eaton rallies energy transition egg-heads for a three-day Energy & Renewables Webcast Series
Eaton has rallied experts for a three-day intense webcast sessions where it explored key challenges and opportunities in Solar Investment, Project Security and Delivery.
Platforms Africa reports that on the second day of the Energy & Renewables Webcast Series, moderated by Jim McClelland, top renewable experts like Gregor Paterson-Jones, Managing Partner, NGPJ Consulting; Alex Brierley, Co-Head Renewables Investments, Octopus Energy Generation; Rafael Narezzi, CTO, CF Partners; and Dirk Kaisers, Distributed Energy Management Segment Leader, Eaton, examined common areas of potential conflict in Renewable Project, including the challenge of an EPC company typically seeking to reduce its CAPEX cost, while the investor wants to spend more to boost performance.
The second session with the topic; “Solutions for Utility-Scale Solar PV,” periscoped the particulars of project success for the likes of solar farms and parks, starting with insights from the panel around finance and funding, and providing an expert perspective from the investment community.
The discussion then turned to the specifics of engineering, construction and procurement (EPC), with dedicated input around both challenges faced, and solutions sought.
The panel explored some of the more common areas of potential conflict on a project, including the challenge of an EPC company typically seeking to reduce its CAPEX cost, while the investor wants to spend more to boost performance. Opportunity to optimise the electrical balance of plant (eBOP) was also explored as a means of helping an EPC company meet its performance guarantees cost-effectively.
Finally, this deep-dive debate focused on security issues — ranging from concerns around climate-induced power shortages and outages, to the threat of terrorist activity and the rising incidence of headline-making cyber-attacks as the industry goes digital.
As we progress towards a clean power future, solar PV has a central role to play in the sustainable energy transition, with as much as 194GW of new capacity forecast to come online during 2021, according to the latest trends and analysis from BloombergNEF.
However, the successful adoption and development of utility-scale solar at a project level is not without challenges that could include issues around investment, technological innovation, changes to regulations, complexities of grid connectivity and security, plus energy storage.
