September 26th, 2018, Belfast, Northern Ireland
From Sunday the 23rd of September through Wednesday the 26th of September, the Solution Mining Research Institute organized the Fall 2018 SMRI Technical Conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland. WEP was present at this interesting conference.
Energy Transition was one of the main topics at the SMRI Conference. As part of the energy transition, governments, industries, and science are looking for sustainable alternatives to hydrocarbons. One of those alternatives includes the installation and operation of windmills both onshore and offshore. As windmills only produce energy with enough wind force, solutions are required for the storage of this energy, such as storage in salt caverns. Further topics discussed include various ways of modelling of stresses surrounding salt caverns and rock salt behaviour, international regulations, and best practices and technical challenges and solutions related to salt cavern operations.
The conference was a great opportunity for WEP to remain up-to-date in order to best support WEP’s solution mining clients on technical-, production- and geomechanical state-of-the-art solutions and studies and discuss the solution mining industries specific challenges with operators, consultants, regulators and service providers.