The Bilbao Exhibition Centre is one of four candidates short-listed to become the home of the first European Forum for Renewable Energy Sources, scheduled to take place in 2009. The permanent venue for this forum will be announced in September, with Copenhagen, Reykjavik and Frankfurt being the other cities short-listed to host the European edition of an event which has consolidated itself as a strategic meeting point following the initial edition in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) in January this year.

The candidacy of the Bilbao Exhibition Centre forms part of a bid submitted with the support of the Basque government, the Department of Innovation and Economic Promotion of the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, Bilbao City Hall, the Bilbao Convention Bureau and Destino Bilbao.

The first World Future Energy Summit attracted 220 exhibitors and over 11,000 top-ranking visitors from 77 countries, including royalty, heads of state, energy and environment ministers and top business persons. In the wake of this initial success and the event’s clear intention to become a global reference point for energy policy and the development of alternative, renewable infrastructures and investment, organisers Turet Middle East have decided to expand its geographical area of influence by staging further forums outside the Middle East region every two years.

The European city selected will host two-yearly events combining commercial exhibitions with technical seminars on renewable energy sources and their applications, a field which is developing rapidly and attracting the interest of specialists from the worlds of energy, architecture and finance. In short, a forum will be established for exchanges and discussions on the technologies and strategies required to achieve the ever more pressing goal of mitigating the environmental impact of the use of conventional energy sources.

Spokespersons for Turret Middle East will announce the official result of the selection process in September. This British-based specialist event organiser has a track record that features both trade exhibitions (such as the Gastech exhibition and conference serving the natural gas, LNG and LPG industries, the 25th edition of which was held at the Bilbao Exhibition Centre in 2005) and events aimed at end consumers