Better communications key to getting renewable projects off the ground

Renewable energy companies can shorten the long approval process needed for their projects by communicating better with stakeholders, according to experts.

Christina Shim, IBM’s chief sustainability officer, said sponsors need to focus on the business value — in addition to the environmental benefits — when discussing their projects.

“That being said … there are some triggering words now, depending on where you sit around the world, and I think the more that you can quantify business value for what you’re doing and tie it to, again, the business operations and business decision making, it’s only going to be more and more important,” Shim said Thursday.

“As long as the outcomes are the same, you just need to make sure that you’re communicating in an appropriate way with the right stakeholders.”

She compared it to how one might talk to a CFO, versus an investor, versus someone in procurement. “You kind of have to talk about things a little bit differently.”

Mitesh Patel, interim CEO and COO at SunCable International, agrees that adjusting communication for the right audience is crucial.

“For politicians, the voters are their constituency, not your project or not your company. You have to help them translate what benefits your project will bring to the constituents,” said Patel, whose company is developing a project to deliver solar energy from Australia to Singapore via undersea cables.

The project, called Australia-Asia PowerLink, is valued around $24 billion and expected to supply Singapore with 1.75 gigawatts of electricity — or around 15% of its electricity needs, according to the company.

The comments by Shim and Patel, who were speaking to CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick on a panel in Singapore, come as renewable energy projects often take many years to get off the ground.

A report from the Global Infrastructure hub, which is part of the World Bank’s Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility, noted the complex nature of preparation needed before an infrastructure project gets underway. It put the average project preparation time at 6 years but said it can take up to 14 years if the project is not planned properly.

Cenk Alper, CEO of Sabanci Holding, a Turkish conglomerate, said the biggest obstacle to getting renewable energy projects off the ground is often regulatory.

“The biggest problem is still government — the permits. Because from licensing to making a project ready, the total time is longer than the construction time,” he said.

The situation in Europe is worse, he added, citing a project where connecting to the grid took two years.

Alper said Western countries need to streamline the approval process for renewable energy projects, noting China has embarked on more projects in the last five years than the rest of the world combined.