PAUL McCormack, the Programme Manager of the Belfast Met-led EU hydrogen project ‘GenComm’ will present a hydrogen paper at the UK’s largest low carbon energy event, ‘All Energy/Dcarbonise 2023’ in Glasgow on May 10-11 with the Scottish First Minister, the Rt Hon Humza Yousaf, MSP and a number of Scottish Government Ministers in attendance.
The paper, ‘Skills key to unlocking the Clean Hydrogen Economy’ will highlight the work of Belfast Met in building the skills foundation for a new green economy through the work in creating the 3 European GenComm Hydrogen Hub pilot plants producing hydrogen by solar, wind and biomass methods and will explore the Northern Ireland Hydrogen Training Academy. In January 2023 the Scottish government published its Draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan. Now at this major renewables event in the SEC in Glasgow, there will be a number of key sessions in the 2-day event including the ‘Heat Transition to Net Zero’ session organised by the Scottish Government. Patrick Harvie, MSP, Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings will take part in this session. In the ‘Transport Decarbonisation’ session, Transport Minister Kevin Stewart, MSP will take part. Lorna Slater, MSP, Scotland’s Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity will be one of the speakers in the ‘Working for Net Zero’ event. Scotland’s Energy Minister Gillian Martin, MSP will get the plenary session on May 11 started in a ‘Meet the Minster’ spot.
There will also be a session, ‘The Hydrogen Transition 2: Creating Market Pull’ which will include Mark Griffin, Head of Hydrogen Market Development at Scottish Power.
This event which was first staged in 2001 also looks at the bigger picture in a session labelled, ‘Decarbonising cities/places’. Paul McCormack will explore the new green economy models created by Gencomm across Europe including the Scottish GenComm plant at Stornoway. All forms of renewable energy will be discussed at this action-orientated event where key industry figures meet to discuss the new technologies and direction being taken in the journey to net zero.
Last year in 2022 Nicola Sturgeon, the then First Minister of Scotland visited the event. In 2023 Glasgow’s First Citizen, the Lord Provost of Glasgow, Ms Jacqueline McLaren will be greeting those assembled.
Looking forward to speaking at this event to over 8,000 attendees of key figures in the UK renewables field, Paul McCormack said: “ Skills are the powerful force in building new clean energy systems. A key challenge for efforts to transition economies to clean energy and tackle climate change is to create this skills foundation enabling sustainable change on our transition to net zero. Globally the triple crises of climate change, energy costs, and energy security have spurred a major response by governments to speed up the deployment of cleaner and more secure alternatives but this response is dependent on the skills base required to achieve sustainable change. Our energy landscape is changing fast, new technologies especially hydrogen are building momentum, in order to sustain this growth we must deliver the skills required for our economy in transition.”
