Burges Salmon is a renewables powerhouse and Ross Fairley is the man at the helm as the firm’s head of renewable energy and chair of its net zero services. In that capacity he helps businesses like Southern Water, Bristol City Council (City Leap), ITM Power, Kent County Council and ICG Infra on the most pressing issue of the age. One of the most gratifying things, says Fairley, is that he is seeing more and more work with corporates on net zero projects that now want to partner with developers or do things by themselves.
The projects Fairley and his team work on aren’t necessarily always the biggest but they are some of the most interesting and innovative in the field: floating wind; the often-forgotten renewable technology of tidal power, hydrogen projects that were unfashionable for years but are now in vogue; hybrid schemes that put various forms of electricity generation together to supply a site.
There will be bumps along the way, says Fairley, but net zero is now an inevitability. That means more instructions for him and for his Burges Salmon team in 2023 – and beyond.