This September 16^th-17^th, Cobalt Energy once again exhibited at the Resource and Waste Management Exhibition (RWM) at the NEC, Birmingham.

Split over two days, with help from our Technical and Business Development teams, we welcomed visitors to our stand who approached us with a great mix of potential work and sales, with topics ranging from scaling up on biomass sites, balance of plant (BOP) support, the option of building and designing plants, including anaerobic digestion (AD) plants and work as a carbon dioxide to ethanol consultant. A lot of potential employees and new talent visited too, with those looking for potential placement years and internship roles. With our social value team, we are putting a lot of time and effort into these initiatives, raising awareness of STEM careers in schools around Stockport and our site locations. This shows that we are doing right by our future talent and those invested in their own engineering futures.

This year, a huge interest in anaerobic digestion and battery energy storage systems (BESS) was noticeable, reflecting recent changes to legislation and waste management in the UK with the national introduction of food waste bins. Many attendees sought to understand how AD and BESS are involved in Cobalt’s own business functions, as well as how we intend to develop these areas moving forward, with many conversations continuing since the exhibition.

Additionally, our marketing materials were a big hit this year. As well as our usual displays, a great addition to this year’s stand was a video loop that showcased all the excellent footage we captured earlier this year of Cobalt Energy’s operations and projects, demonstrating our company culture and site operations to curious visitors and potential clients. In anticipation of the high number of attendees, we had organised plenty of tote bags, notebooks, pens and bookmarks printed with a QR code to the Cobalt Energy website. Many visitors praised these items – one even noting that our pens worked excellently and were the most stylish for these events.

While we were treated to the usual great display of JCB vehicles and new electric wastebins of previous years, showcasing the new technologies these vehicles operate on, new industry changes were readily apparent too. A new and notable focus on the integration of artificial intelligence into robotics was visible, for example, such as some of the self-driving waste management vehicles demonstrated at the expo. We look forward to how these changes will continue to transform the market.

After a couple of busy days, our teams are continuing to investigate these new leads, deciding how we will follow up on these great connections to help develop Cobalt Energy as our company continues to grow.

Thank you to everyone who helped to represent our stand. We look forward to building on these connections in the future!

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