HUSUMwind 2007

This year HUSUMwind, with its accompanying trade symposia, took place from 18 to 22 September. For the tenth time, the international wind power industry met in the North Frisian town of Husum. With 640 exhibitors from 30 countries, visitors needed plenty of time to see all the products and services on display. Around 18,000 visitors from 40 nations attended the event this year.

 
{access view=!registered}Only logged in users can view the full text of the article.{/access}{access view=registered}The floor covered more than 22,500 square metres, set in one hall and three large tents in the tradition of HUSUMwind. The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) was the exclusive international partner of the congress for the second year. The conference was opened by Sigmar Gabriel, German Federal Minister for Environment, Nature and Nuclear Safety; Peter Harry Carstensen, Minister of the state of Schleswig-Holstein; and Chad Culler, Governor of the US state of Iowa, among other dignitaries. With 20% more exhibitors and 30% more visitors, of whom over 90% were trade visitors, the emphasis of the event is on the exhibition part.

International Audience
The show is also becoming more and more international, although the majority of the visitors came from Europe. Over 27% of the visitors came from abroad. Most of the visitors (over 70%) were from other European countries, 8% from China and 12% from the USA. The difference from other events during the year is that the more technical people also visit this show. As a result, many exhibitors also focus more on the technology. We picked up several new interesting technological developments at the show and will publish articles about them in future issues.

Windcareer Job Fair
HUSUMwind 2007 closed on the Saturday with the first windcareer job fair. Around 30 exhibitors - large wind energy companies, various vocational training institutions and numerous employment agencies - were at the job fair, which was held as part of the HUSUMwind Congress. The space dedicated to the job fair area attracted around 2,000 visitors, mostly job and apprenticeship seekers. In the windcareer lecture theatre an audience of over 120 people followed talks on the subject of 'Qualification in the wind energy industry - from apprenticeships to university courses'. This programme was enhanced by presentations from the personnel directors of several wind energy companies. The wind industry companies reported 300 job vacancies and this shows just how great the manpower requirement is.

From the Exhibition Floor
As in the past, most of the turbine manufacturers were located in Hall 1 and therefore this was the most crowded hall. For the next edition it seems that the organisers will break with this concept and will spread the turbine manufacturers over the different halls, which will draw larger audiences to the other halls as well. During the event a lot of people were talking about offshore wind, but the main focus was still on onshore wind. Although offshore wind is a growing market it is (still) not big enough to be a substantial part of the exhibition in Husum. Several offshore companies that had exhibited at the 2005 edition decided not to exhibit this year because of the lack of response for offshore issues of the visitors. But people specially interested in offshore wind should attend European Offshore Wind organised in Berlin from 4 to 6 December this year.

Since the cost of an installed turbine is becoming higher, protecting them also becomes more of an issue. This year several companies offering fire protection showed their products. The cost of such a system is around 1% of the total investment, but so far only a few turbines are equipped with fire protection systems. Maybe when insurance companies require fire protection this will become more common. But since the costs are relatively small it might be common sense to protect your investment anyhow.

During the event Svendborg Brakes introduced an electro-mechanical brake especially developed for wind turbines. Their research and development team used a combined technology that gives compact design and effective drive. This electro-mechanical brake is no bigger than a comparable hydraulic brake and even 100% compatible to it. One of the main features of this brake is that the clamping and brake forces and curve can easily be user-programmed in the integrated controller. Several implementations such as monitoring battery voltage and activation time make this brake safe, with reduced air gap and pad wear adjustment. Also, the modular design makes it easy to repair if ever necessary.

Of course there were more new developments at the show than we can put in this review, but since the wind business is booming we saw mostly more of the same. Many manufacturers are focusing on increasing their production capacity to fulfil the enormous demand. If you want to find out for yourselves what is going on in the industry I suggest you attend the next edition.

The Future of Husum
(Finally) Husum Messe and Hamburg Messe join forces. WindEnergy Hamburg and HUSUMwind, together with the German Engineering Federation, VDMA, will cooperate in the future and jointly organise a world-class international wind power exhibition. This will be held for the first time under the new name of HUSUM WindEnergy, in Husum from 9 to 13 September 2008. This new trade fair, like its precursors HUSUMwind and WindEnergy, will take place at two-yearly intervals. Every alternate year, starting in 2009, the annual international energy trade fair at Hannover Messe will be expanding to include a focus on wind. We very much welcome this initiative and look forward to attending the first edition of the ‘renewed' show in 2008.{/access}