The Intersolar Europe trade show and EU PVSEC conference will be held at the same time and venue as of next year.
Organisers confirmed the change on Wednesday. Both events will remain independent under the terms of the agreement.
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Both events have shrunk in step with the European industry but remain the largest exhibitions and conferences respectively for the European solar industry.
“Holding EU PVSEC and Intersolar Europe at the same time and in the same location will provide exhibitors, conference participants and visitors with an outstandingly wide range of products and information, while turning their stay in Munich into the most efficient and valuable appointment in the global solar power sector’s annual calendar,” read a statement from the organisers.
The 2015 EU PVSEC event in Hamburg this September will go ahead as planned.
Finlay Colville, head of Solar Intelligence, Solar Media’s market research division broadly welcomed the move.
“Intersolar Europe and EU PVSEC were two of the leading European solar events that got caught up in the rapid growth of European solar between 2007 and 2012, as mainland European markets such as Spain, Germany and Italy were driving global PV growth. Each show saw massive growth in attendance, with the need to shift Intersolar to Munich to accommodate the extra companies wishing to make a presence in Europe,” he said.
“Not content with growth in their key focus, each event sought to somewhat exploit the success of each other. Intersolar tried to add a technical conference to what is essentially a downstream sales-based exhibition. EU PVSEC tried to add an exhibition to what is a highly technical-based meeting of academic researchers. Ultimately as the PV industry in mainland Europe went into decline, neither event could justify a dual approach in clientele, finding it hard enough to keep hold of their core audience,” explained Colville.
“Combining the events is far from a given to restore success however. The audience for each is not a direct overlap, and anyone attending the recent Munich event was confronted by what was basically an end-user event, with a sprinkling of upstream activities. Similarly, recent PVSEC events in Europe have seen the exhibitor listings collapse compared to the days of Hamburg some years back.
“While Intersolar may have a short-term boost from audience numbers, it remains to be seen if PVSEC will be able to retain its dedicated technology focus, or will be consumed ultimately by the greater emphasis being placed these days in mainland Europe on restoring a depleted end-market deployment base,” added Colville.