Amisha Patel: Big Ambition At Global Offshore Wind Alliance

(upbeat music) Hello and welcome to the EIC Clearly podcast. EIC Clearly, see what I did there. This is the podcast that brings you in-depth discussions with energy, policy and thought leaders on the most critical issues, trends and innovations shaping the global energy supply chain. Hi everybody, it's Stuart Bauder here from the EIC. I'm very excited today to welcome back to EIC offices Amisha Patel, hi Amisha. Hi Stuart, thanks for having me. Well of course, we didn't want you to leave in the first place. (laughing) It's so good to be back after so many years actually. I left, I think just at the cusp of the COVID pandemic starting, I think around March 2020 was the last time I was here. Indeed indeed. So Amisha is now Executive Director at the Global Offshore Wind Alliance or Goa. Now Goa's fascinating organization which is co-founded by three organizations, the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities for the Government of Denmark, the International Renewable Energy Agency or Irina and the Global Wind Energy Council or GWEC. With this kind of challenging goal or ambition to ensure or unlock 2,000 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2050, which is the global requirement for offshore wind and its role for the world to achieve net zero by 2050. So just a small ambition. I guess it's covering 27 nations in its remit. (upbeat music) So we're going to find out all about what Amisha's been doing most recently in Goa, but in fact, Amisha, let's go back to where it all started for you. You've always been passionate about the climate and about renewables and about policy. So where did it all start for you? My sort of policy journey started very early on from childhood I've always been interested in current affairs. Were you always lobbying your parents, were you? Well, I don't know. I think my dad would say that. But we're very much into current affairs. I'd always watched the six o'clock news with him and I'd like was a kind of like a highlight of the day for me actually, because he was already always bringing home a paper, always watching the news as well. And actually remember saying to him, like, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I'd say I'd want to be a foreign correspondent. And that was very profound for like a 10-year-old to say I would say at that time. So I knew that I always had an interest in current affairs. And as I went on with my education, that kind of interest kind of honed into two areas around history and politics. I was always really interested and I would say good at those subjects over others. So that kind of got me to university studying history and politics. And then I entered the civil service through a graduate scheme, if you like, which was really targeted at increasing the participation of a BAME. So back then referred to as Black Asian and minority ethnic. So to increase participation. And I entered the civil service fast track through that. - Was this in New Delhi? - My first position I got was the Foreign and Common of the office. So now the FCDO. And I was posted out to the High Commission in New Delhi. And that was kind of how my professional career started. - And it just a timestamp that that's 2004. - Yeah, all the way back in 2004. And there I was working within the press and public affairs department. And on various issues, and energy did come into that. But it was more around sharing best practices on nuclear back then as well with India looking at their nuclear policy. And I also worked on water resource management out there as well through the FCO's initiative out there. And also what was then the department for international development as well. So a joint project. And that kind of peaked my interest in environmental issues. But even then, I didn't know that it was sort of the climate and energy space that I wanted to go into. It was after I came back from India and then joined what was back then the Engineering Employers Federation now make UK, environmental team. And then from there, the interest kind of started to flow. - And then it all got really going, of course, when you joined EIC. - Yes. - So I joined EIC in 2016, which you already hear a key part of the management team back then, because you joined in 2013. - Yes. - And as you say, you left in 2020, just literally the month of COVID, things have changed. So much haven't they since 2020. So when you look back, what did it feel like at the time working in the energy industry? Because EIC calls global organization, energy, agnostic, so not just a renewable organization. Your role was global head of power, nuclear and renewables, and you have public affairs as well. - I joined the EIC at a really interesting time because my position was created to kind of separate out the market intelligence on the oil and gas side to the power nuclear and renewable side. And particularly the focus on renewables, just prior to that as well, Stuart, I had been working with the UK government on the contracts for difference mechanism to unlock renewables. It was a really interesting time in UK policy at that time with the Climate Change Act, us in the UK having the first legally binding target as well. So there was a lot of success around renewables. - So if we sort of fast forward sits down from an EIC point of view, of course, what we've seen is periods where renewable technology and obviously from a go-up point of view, your offshore wind, so fixed bottom and floating offshore wind, a real period of huge growth backed up by very low interest rates, of course, and good subsidies that drove that growth. Increasingly all around the world for 2018 through the 2022 very high FID rates, very high build out rates. So definitely from our membership point of view, there was a lot of success there. But then what we saw after that was okay as the Russian invasion of Ukraine happened and that then pushed inflation which then pushed interest rates up, then we started to see things not going so well. Some projects slowing down. There was a lot of building of projects still happening from projects previously that have reached FID and therefore the messaging was, oh, we're busier than ever, but our members were saying, well, there's no new projects where are they? And they said, well, we started to see. So you left in 2020 and then you stayed in the offshore wind industry basically throughout. - That's when I was really specialised and really honed in. - You really have, exactly. And so we saw from our supply chain point of view how the market got harder again. And of course, the other thing happened that we went from UK being the biggest producer of offshore wind to becoming the second biggest producer of China, piled in to the offshore wind markets. It really successfully. So that's what we saw. And here we are today and I'd say what we see is now an important requirement for EIC to be as energy agnostic as possible to really respect all technologies to not try and pick winners because offshore wind has a critical role that solar solar and other renewable technologies and so does ourling gas still today. And so does new clear increasingly. And of course, then we've also got the increasing our wave of excitement around AI and data centers which is also drawing a lot of capital into those markets as well. And I guess what we've learnt as EIC over the last five years is there's actually only a limited amount of capital and it goes to where the most exciting, profitable markets are. We continue to be in a world of uncertainty. Let's talk us through this in your last six years and what have you learnt then? - I think it's an interesting one there to do it as well. And I guess in terms of technologies, we're not too dissimilar in that way. The global offshore wind alliance is there to really show the key role that offshore wind has to play in the energy transition, energy independence, security, as well as climate policy. But equally, we're here to support that acceleration of offshore wind. But we're also looking at the complementarity of offshore wind to other technologies as well. So I think just to make that point. But I think this is it. We've experienced as an industry like you say, a bit of a boom there. We were seeing pipeline visibility. We were seeing growing ambition. And with that, you saw many new entrants into the market as well. We were seeing a number of developers and then Ukraine hit as well. And the Ukraine Russia crisis it. And we saw auctions being pulled back. We saw companies having to take a step back from markets and go through a bit more of a consolidation process as well. But as a result of that, Stuart, the last couple of years, we've also seen the market respond to some of these challenges. So we talk about the support mechanisms that were out there. We're talking about capital flows. We've also seen policymakers and industry reflect on the realities of being a bit more adaptable and resilient to some of these market challenges. We saw in the UK, AR6, saw no bidders. We also had an auction in Denmark where we saw no bidders Germany as well. This became quite reflective in and around auctions across Europe. But we've also seen policymakers respond to that. So in the UK, we saw the support mechanism, the contracts are different, adjusted strike price to reflect some of these realities. Still keeping offshore wind, competitive to its fossil fuel counterparts as well. So they're still very competitive when we look at across the energy mix. But we've seen this awareness that there needs to be this investment, there needs to be this upfront capital for the first initial gigawatts coming into the markets to then really see that cost trajectory go down to the levels that we need it to be, that we want it to be. So let's talk then about the big goal of Goa, which is 2,000 gigawatts of additional offshore wind in 24 years. God is 2050 only 24 years away. How do you feel about that? I don't know, Stuart. That's a topic for another day. So what is the role of Goa today? And how is it formatted so there's three co-founding organisations? When did it happen? And yeah, what do you spend your time focusing on? So Goa was co-founded through the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities and the Government of Denmark, the International Renewable Energy Agency, Irene and the Global Wind Energy Council, G-Wack. And it was co-founded and launched during COP27. And with that view, as you've said, to bring multi-stakeholders together, but to operate at a diplomatic level to accelerate offshore wind. So since the initiative was launched, we've had 27 governments sign on to the call for action, and we have a number of industry and civil society members and multilateral development banks also coming into membership and underpinning. that needed expertise from this multi-stakeholder approach to make offshore wind a reality in these countries where we need it. So we come together and we facilitate the sharing of best practice across border, taking regional approaches, taking global approaches, country-to-country facilitation as well, around key areas where we're seeing bottlenecks and we're seeing the need for policy innovation and we will see a benefit from lessons being shared across the borders to really accelerate that vision and that mission. And I say 27 governments but we have many more working within our network as well so this is continuing to grow but we're at 27 since our launch. How do you link into the COP process and how effective is the COP process do you think? An interesting question because I know this has come under the magnifying glass over the last couple of years as well. We're very active in the COP process. We were launched at a COP, our annual global stock take, takes place at COP every year where we invite our members to share their progress on their offshore wind ambition and also bring this multi-stakeholder approach together to talk about some of the issues and some of the bottlenecks and opportunities that exist. Now my confidence in the COP process remains. It's setting out that vision and holding that level of accountability for countries to report on their nationally determined contributions. For offshore wind and for us as an alliance we work with countries throughout the year to see how we can support the implementation of targets or ambition in national plans which then can be translated into these nationally determined contributions as well. And the forum provides countries to come together and to learn from each other but also keep a reality check of how far the goal is or how near the goal can be through collaboration of various policies as well. So I think it's very, very important that COP and multilateral forums continue to be facilitated in this way. A lot of people I've spoken to in the last couple of years feel that this sense of sanity check and adult discussion and brutal honesty about the challenges of achieving net zero. In fact even the term net zero which is so heavily linked to the IAA and to COP. People feel that that brutal honesty is not happening. The ambition is so tied into the goals of these organisations that when it's not going well they find it hard to talk about that and it's sort of a denial of that and instead of focus on we have to keep going and we have to assume we can catch up and even though the 2050 doesn't move and our progress is not what we need to be we can't accept the fact that obviously we're not going to hit 2050. How do you feel about the role of brutal honesty and adult discussions and the relevance of it's okay to say we're struggling versus saying no no no we can only have positive messaging here. I mean I guess I don't agree with what you're saying there. Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed at all. You're smiling because you're like this is like deja vu but I think for me certainly what I've experienced through Goa but also through other roles in being a part of these forums is this is the whole point of bringing multi-stakeholders together. It's to actually bring up these realities of these challenges right. We just talked about the auctions being refined to bring investment forward. That was a prime example of private public sector collaboration and also globally as well because we saw countries learn from each other. So it's really about bringing some of these difficult discussions to the table to actually problem solve and that's what we're seeing. I don't think anyone sort of moving away from the challenges. I think what we're being challenged to do is to face different realities and to pivot our policy approaches and our industry approaches our investment approaches to these changing geopolitical dynamics but these forums and the work of institutions are very very critical to that because otherwise we're these discussions and this thinking take place. I think that's true that clearly we need to have a forum that provides a safe and trusting environment with the experts to come together and really talk about the challenges and build plans and build awareness. If you're enjoying this podcast and think you have an inspiring story to tell contact me, Stuart Broadley directly as I would love to do a sea level podcast with you too. EIC is proud to be the UK's largest membership energy trade association and the fifth largest in the world. We are unique around the world for three reasons. We are truly energy agnostic, believing all energy technologies are vital to delivering energy security, affordability and adjust transition. We are the only energy trade association anywhere in the world that offers a truly in-house one-stop shop for market intelligence, networks and events to help our members export diversifying grow and we are proud to be the voice of the energy supply chain advocating for the five golden rules of a healthy energy supply chain. More details on EIC membership, the five golden rules, details about doing a future podcast with me and how to contact us about anything else are in the description for this podcast. I know you have a global stock take process for offshore wind and COP already has its own global stock take process which in COP28 in Aberdabby was their first reporting of progress against a global stock take. How do you feel the global stock take process is going because it's my personal impression was I was a bit disappointed in the global stock take transparency at COP28 because it ended up just being a percentage shortfall against the target without any real transparency on which countries were doing better than others and some kind of, I'm called it a league table of countries doing best and you know making the best progress in countries for this behind and some kind of owning the accountability around I'm struggling as a country to achieve my goals and I sort of was hoping that global stock take would do that. How are you finding your own global stock take process and getting the countries that signed up to your protocols to support that kind of transparency? I think there's a lot of accountability placed into the stock take process overall. We have Irene for example produce an annual global stock take and report every year to measure against the progress on the tripling of renewables a target for example. Again this is more of a personal view now. I don't believe that the intention is for the stock take to be confrontational in that way. It's about finding a pathway to enable countries to move forward and progress right. I disagree through the NDC process as well and through the report. I miss this. You do see a level. Are you good to disagree? You do see transparency from countries coming forward but in a more I guess collegiate and collaborative way to then come together collectively to drive progress forwards and that's certainly how Goa works as well throughout global stock take as well. We'll hear countries our members come forward and say you know this is some of the challenges that we're having again going back to the auctions but also supply chain is also a key area that we're working on now. We talked about growth rates a moment ago for offshore wind. Yeah we're at 93 gigawatts at the moment I think these are the latest figures aren't they? According to Irene we need to be somewhere close to around 470 gigawatts by 2030 to kind of help us chart the course for that 2050 target. How is the changing global environment for collaboration impacting the progress of an organisation like Goa so here we are now we have a US administration that has withdrawn from the COP process and is you know obviously dual baby drill and all the things that means how do you address that? I think for us we have to be agile and adaptive to the challenges so obviously it's something that we monitor very closely. The US were members of Goa under the previous administration. I know you're aware of this and unfortunately withdrew last year as well. What we see from the governments that we work with the stakeholders that we work with there's this willingness to work collaboratively and also an increasing awareness that to meet ambition nationally and to this overall vision that we've mapped out you can't do this alone right? Again going back to supply chain we're seeing ambitious growth trajectory in APAC we're seeing that within Europe and the North Sea in particular with the Hamburg declaration just earlier this year with a huge and ambitious trajectory doable but an awareness that there needs to be collaboration amongst nations and cross borders to be able to reach those targets as well and that's what we're here to facilitate we're here to facilitate that level of cross border working and also to take lessons from certain regions over to other regions to ensure that they can leapfrog or that they can adapt some of the experiences to their regional context as well so for me I see this as even more increasing demand for this level of collaboration and this level of facilitation. I know when the things that go support is this concept of the role of renewables particularly offshore wind for countries meeting their own energy security independence and even sovereignty strategies and here we are now in a situation of you know global turbulence with a European war in the Middle East of war do you see that there's this concept of each country needing to have as much as possible that own sovereign independent resilient energy resources is more important ever? I think there's definitely been a shift in the narrative around this so we're definitely seeing that it's not just climate or energy policy anymore it is about energy security we're seeing national strategies also align and think in that way as well so energy independence but also industrial growth as well but also looking at the vulnerability of price shocks when it comes to fossil fuel as well especially countries that are relying on imports so we're seeing an increasing amount of reflection and adaptation to national policies to protect against these shocks in future as well but I think what the challenge is is the essence of time as well as to hurt. Right, I'm large infrastructure projects take a long time to build as well. There's also many aspects around supply chain again coming back to that all important, having the right policy and framework mechanisms in place in alignment with that. In Scotland, of course, there is this opportunity to grab and embrace one and a half billion pound investment by Mingyang, which it looks like they're going to not do, but of our global goal of getting towards 2000 gigawatts of offshore wind. How important is China in that? I mean, they're making more than half the world's offshore wind production and turbines today, anyway. So they're clearly critical in this, but of course a lot of European organisations see it as a threat. Maybe I can tell a story at this point. I've only ever been booed once. Really Stuart? No, you're thinking you booed me lots more time. No, I haven't. So I was in the audience of an event that was focused on offshore wind two years ago, and there was a developer of offshore wind speaking at the podium about how hard it was to achieve the cost targets for offshore wind. And I asked the question, wasn't it time to then think about bringing in Chinese offshore wind manufacturers to grab that 30 to 40% cost discount that they would bring? And I got booed from people around me in the crowd. And of course it was because it was a roomful of Western European supply chain companies, including the offshore wind companies. And they didn't want me to talk about that. But as soon as I said that, and it's fair to say that the person on the stage who was talking on behalf of one of the developers found it difficult to answer the question, and to which they said, well, I can't directly answer the question, but we are having to consider all options right now. And I think since then, actually, Chinese technology has been used sparingly, and is still being considered for some key projects in Europe, but not at scale yet. But what happened after I asked that question and then got booed was then someone from Mingyang turned out they were in the audience and they stood up and they said, well, we're actually here and we're willing to talk and we're not a threat. We just have good technology and we're part of the supply chain. And actually then that led to a very good positive discussion after that. So it was almost like we had to break through the protectionist view to then actually discuss it properly. How do you see the role of China in the offshore wind build out of the future? I think it's a good question to it. And of course, China is the world's largest market in offshore wind. And we've talked a lot about Asia and we're seeing the critical role for Asia's build out. And we've got markets like Philippines, for example, that are looking to the Chinese supply chain to really help with the build out of particularly their first projects. So I think it's something that we track and monitor as well. And Chinese companies, our members of the Global Wind Energy Council, China is also a member of the International Renewable Energy Agency co-founders. So we do have through Irina and Jiwek, awareness around China's critical role as well. And we also draw an example around best practice on some of the developments that are there. They're not yet members of Goa, but Goa is a global offshore wind alliance. And we welcome all governments that have an interest in accelerating offshore wind globally. Okay, so let's talk now about misinformation. I think one of the things that must be challenging in your role when you're trying to share positive stories and examples is how we live in a world now of misinformation, don't we? And, you know, okay, Trump would call it fake news. But in the end, whether it comes from, you know, governments, administrations, whether it comes from the media, whether it's just misunderstanding, how do you deal with getting the facts across and addressing misinformation, which it feels like it's constantly out there now? This is a really big challenge for the industry at the moment. Because we've seen that as offshore wind becomes more prominent, we've seen misinformation spread around very, very rapidly and particularly in newer markets as well. So a good example of this is a narrative that was spread over the last couple of years around offshore wind turbines being responsible for well deaths. And this was very, very widely circulated in the US. And the facts are that the primary cause of well deaths remain ship strikes and fishing gear in tanglement. That this is the reality, this is the facts. So we've had to make a very strong consolidated effort, not goa alone, but as an industry to really present the facts to it. And it really is that simple. It's really rebuffing, going out there, getting the best expertise of real life examples that we can and placing those to the right audiences. As goa, we've been working across the value chain of our membership to make sure that we take this actual project learnings from the experts and feed them into the questions that we're being asked around this as well. So it's really, really important that we combat these narratives with facts, but also that we present them in the right trusted environments as well. The placement of our messaging really, really got to be key here as well. It's a threat that continues to spread not only for offshore wind, but for renewables in general. So you joined us as Secretary of Africa just every year ago on your birthday. What have you learnt and how are you enjoying the role? Firstly, it's a real honour to be working behind an alliance, which is a cause that I'm really, really passionate about as well. I want to see offshore wind in markets around the world, not only contributing to our 1.5 ambition, but also creating opportunities and jobs and growth and regenerating coastal communities. What we've talked about as well, keeping the momentum across challenging times in the current geopolitical environment and also the market shocks that we're getting as well. We've got to keep on pushing forward and we don't always have the answers. We've seen the industry adapt to these challenges, but what we're working against now is time, right? It's acceleration. We need to do this quickly, but we need to do it properly. And I think for us as an alliance, we're very, very cognizant of this fact as well and how we focus our efforts to really amplify and focus on the correct issues to enable this to happen as well. So it's also around prioritisation and that's being quite challenging as well. There's multiple issues and areas that we can work on, but as a multi-stake older alliance, that is focused on lessons learnt and sharing best practice, where do we add the most value and where do we complement the work that is being done by other organisations as well? This is why it needs someone like you though, right? Someone who's passionate, policy-driven, a renewables obsessive, but also very knowledgeable and very credible career. So I think it's the perfect time to have someone like you, we're trying to do such a hard job. I hope so. Thank you, Stuart. At a time where there are real headwinds. I love the term "headwinds" and "offshorewind". I don't know how I feel about that. They make the blades turn faster, but actually it has the opposite meaning in this context, but I've been looking for another word, but I haven't found it, so headwinds that's kind of stuck. Are you an energy business looking to revisit your strategy? Did you know EIC's consult team helped 50 businesses last year? How? We helped them with their strategic investment decisions using EIC's award-winning market intelligence and data to provide them with tailored, pragmatic BD strategies, presentations and reports. It works. Our data and insights have helped customers to confirm their decisions to export, diversify and grow. Contact us now to learn more about EIC's consult and begin your own journey to smarter decisions. Details in the description below. So you of course have recently written a white paper on floating offshore wind, which is one of those technologies which seems to have so much potential, but again it has economic challenges. What's your conclusion right now about the scope and importance of floating offshore wind? Let's say in the next five to ten years. Why we issued the white paper was really to set out this vision and ambition for floating offshore wind because obviously in the current market challenges we've seen a step back and a hesitation that okay we need to fix, fix first and then floating is further away, but really the for us to accelerate again going back to that ambition. Floating is the only option in many markets, you know it's giving us that access to deeper waters for this technology to be deployed. The industry has made significant strides in technology as well, proving from concept to design to implementation. We've seen that and there's a concerted industry effort, so we have the GWX industry accelerator for example, which is driving an industry effort around areas like standardization. So there is that effort but we need that coupled with government ambition again. So we've set out recommendations in this white paper for you know the importance of having that long-term trajectory but also encouraging first mover markets. So you've seen the UK, we've got ambition here, we've got projects moving forward, AR7 was a success, we want to encourage the first mover markets is what I'm calling it, those that have that pipeline and projects underway to come together to create this forum of shared learning so that we can also look to accelerate then the next tranche of markets that are very very floating, orientated and ambitious as well. And I mean it seems to me that one of the strange outcomes of a US administration which is so anti-offshore wind and now pursuing war in the Middle East is actually that creates a situation where countries are then feeling like they're very vulnerable to supply shocks and the inability to get the gas that they need. Countries like the UK and countries across Europe may then react even more aggressively towards we need faster renewable deployment, more sovereign, release sovereign within European regional context or renewable solutions which make us less vulnerable. I think what we're seeing come out of Europe and what we're seeing across the world as well is countries looking at renewables more widely as an opportunity for a long-term trajectory, right? Of course the security aspect has a huge part to play in this but it's also this revival of industrial growth and jobs and creating their manufacturing capabilities and also in the face of digitalisation as well, this increasing demand for electrification provides and opportunity here. So I think it's a combination of things that we're seeing drive a momentum towards renewable. But if you look into Europe, then solar is seen as the cheapest former power right now. I think gas is going to go into a world again now. Everybody say we can't have gas. It's the most expensive problem with that. It's actually coming in 2026 as a result of the Middle East war. We know it now. We can forecast it. So it feels like offshore wind is going to come right back to the fore again of okay, even though economically there's a challenge strategically we need it. I think it is at the fore already to it. It is very much at the fore already. I think a lot of the conversations that we've had and what we've seen isn't about whether we do offshore wind or not. But it's about how we do offshore wind in the current climate. And that's what we've been navigating. And that's certainly the work that go at us. Of course there's many more markets that are available for opening and we're looking to work with those markets as well. Your point on offshore renewables of course really hugely competitive but also where there are land use restrictions and where there is seabed available. Herein lies an opportunity as well. And let's not forget the importance around interconnection as well right. We're not just talking about national energy sovereignty but it's also around what we can do regionally as well. An interconnection and the sharing of energy resources provides a huge opportunity to towards greater independence to a certain extent as well when we're taking a regional approach. So I think it's about the landscape around cross-border collaboration, multilateralism and what it means to be nationally independent from an energy perspective. The definition of that is being challenged as well. I think and that's why we're seeing new alliances and new relationships form geopolitically and energy is at the heart of that. I was really inspired by a piece you wrote recently when you were reflecting on International Women's Day and you've always talked very openly and very honestly around you know the amazing opportunities you see for women and leadership roles and some of the challenges that you've faced and you've seen other people face. And you say in this piece the irony is that many of us have spent years trying to exactly the opposite of what the stereotypes suggest. We have tried to be collaborative rather than combative, constructive rather than confrontational focused on solutions rather than spotlight and these are not weaknesses. In fact they are often precisely the qualities that effective leadership requires. I think these are the cool words and the very inspiring words. Do you want to just talk a bit more about that? Thank you Stuart for reading that as well. I appreciate that. It comes from a very personal space over the years like you say. I think a little bit of frustration is there as well if I'm really honest because it is despite doing all the things that you meant to do as a leader. You still don't have that seat at the table and if you do you still not there because you're seen as a credible or that you deserve to be there. And I've really really sort of encountered that time and time again as well sort of my position or why I got that position being questioned over and over again. And I think that this isn't just me. I've seen this play out for many women in leadership because you know the space is looking a little bit different now and you're coming in and you're challenging perhaps a conventional way of doing things. So that level of acceptance is not there and that can sometimes be really really difficult when you see that damaging the progress of the role that you have a responsibility through being in a role. And if you feel personally responsible for there being a bit of inhibitation for progress that's a really difficult burden to bear. So that's kind of where I was coming at it from that just because you're being collaborative just because you're being sort of more solutions orientated as I said. And you're bringing these ideas to the table and you're in that room it doesn't necessarily mean that you've been accepted there. And that's something that I still challenge with. I think we have a long way to go. And I mean certainly from your time working with me at EIC I was all strapped by your team building passion and the building an amazing team around you. It's so important to you and your personal style of coaching and helping them but also providing with a lot of freedom to learn. I really hope that's how I'm coming across as a leader. I definitely try and do that again being very honest about because I like to reflect on my own behaviors particularly with this level of responsibility. It's hard not to become a control freak because you want to make impact in a really short amount of time and you're also grappled with the challenges that I talk about in that article around your own credibility. So you sometimes go into a bit of a default mode of I've got to do everything for myself if I need to get it done. And I'm very very conscious of that and I ask my team to kind of give me feedback to make sure that I'm not doing that as well but it remains a challenge. But I think it's very very important that creativity is flourished within a team as well so you've got to give people the opportunity to approach things in the way that they approach them and not in the way that you want to approach them. And I think that's something that I still continue to kind of learn as well. My feedback to you is having known you a long time and respect you for what you've done as well as us being friends. That your honesty is your superpower. So but it's what a hard thing to do isn't it be so honest about you know the things we face in a working environment so keep going with that. Let's just wrap up, Shae with kind of then what does the future hold for Goa? What are the plans for 2026 and onwards and for you personally? First of all thank you for having me sure. I really enjoyed it. I don't do podcasts very often. You know I shy away from them so thank you. For Goa so we've reached a first year mark in terms of operationalisation and we have the team and the secretary in place. We have our three-year strategy in place focused around five key priority areas which has been endorsed by our co-founders who are our board and also our steering group which have representatives from across the membership constituencies within Goa as well. And these centre are very much around the misinformation and keeping offshore wind elevated in the policy agenda so that's our continued sort of cuts across all our work. We have the acceleration of floating as well so with the white paper really engagement around that looking at these first mover countries and ensuring that there's collaboration beyond just bilateral collaboration as well so we're there to really again lean into our multi-loupt troll and multi-state corridor approach there. There is the finance and markets aspect as well so we've done quite a bit of engagement around and work around how we adapt to changing economic challenges and environments as well so we continue our work taking those lessons to emerging markets in particular as well and looking into climate finance and the role of that and what it could mean for technologies like offshore wind and there is the supply chain colour of collaboration aspect as well and really looking at regional collaboration in this area as well so we're doing quite a bit of work in collaboration with GWAC and other co-founding organisations on regional collaboration so be able to share a bit more about that later on in the year as well and then I've got to think about what is my fifth one to do it. Is it learning Danish? Because you spent quite a lot of time in this role in Denmark don't you? Yes I do I do but it's not it's the ocean and climate nexus as well so really ensuring that there's environmentally responsible offshore wind but also elevating offshore wind on the ocean agenda as well which is equally important as well as engagement at the climate level the two things work hand in hand so it's a key area of focus as well. I would say that my Danish with all the best efforts is pretty far off I'm sure everyone unanimously will agree with that but I'm going to persist you know I persist you I don't give up very easily maybe the next one. Next podcast in Danish. Oh let's see. Me too it's so lovely to see you thank you for agreeing to do this and sharing the work of GWAC as you know I was in offshore wind myself for four years lived in work in Hamburg and this was 15 years ago when I was in the SACTA then and then it was already a role that was critical within the global energy mix but it's already then full of challenges around economics and around changing national priorities every electoral cycle it felt like now we go to a different country because suddenly they've provided subsidies whereas the country we were working in two years ago now doesn't and I mean it still places that same challenge but I think what has changed is it's moved from a fast growing technology to now a fully established critical part of the global energy mix and probably still the key platform to achieve our 2050 goals perhaps now joined up with solar more formally so it's such a great discussion to have with you about kind of your views on that and I guess I would like to see how we get on perhaps a year from now because I'm really interested of course to see what happens to offshore wind in 2026 whether it comes through this year as a winner because of this as called anti-ion gas rhetoric or particularly anti-gas rhetoric that could happen this year or whether the Trump administration gets their way and pushes gas and oil to the forefront of nations and thinking around energy security so be fascinating to see what happens this year you've got a sense of what this year is going to bring which I think this is going to be a bit of a lost year I think we've got to give ourselves credit in terms of how we've adapted to previous shocks this isn't the first now Stuart we just talked about the last five years from COVID to this date right so I think what we'll see is adaptation of strategies I think we're like I said we'll see different forms of alliances moving across the globe and I think we'll be surprised at the level of progress and pragmatism that comes across from the sector but from also the diplomatic space around this taking the lessons that we've learned from previous years well I look forward to seeing what 2026 brings us Amisha thank you so much lovely to see you and to everybody listening and I hope you enjoyed that EIC lead discussion it's another one of those discussions which I think always helps me as I have these discussions better understand the way leaders think like Amisha but also the way the energy mixes changing the priorities are changing all the time and how if you're in the supply chain It's just important that you stay as diverse as you can. Here's a scenario where we don't actually know whether at the end of this year gas will be dominant or maybe it's a full takeover of the energy mix into offshore wind. So I look forward to seeing an Amitia thanks again for joining in this fun discussion. Thank you Stuart, thanks for convincing me to do this and I look forward to coming back. Thank you. Well that's our show for today, a huge shout out to Samara, Lucas and your wow and the rest of our incredible team behind the scenes. This show truly wouldn't happen without them. If you enjoyed this podcast it would mean the world if you'd hit that follow button. Give a five star rating or leave a review. It's the best way to help us keep doing what we love and, as a thank you, I'll leave you with my favourite five word joke. Love wind power, big fan.