Global Offshore Wind Manchester 2026

Ally is a marine consultant in ERM's Capital Projects team in Glasgow, with over eight years of professional experience. She initially started as a terrestrial ecologist, working on various projects across the UK, including onshore wind farms. Ally transitioned into digital aerial survey as a lead analyst. She has experience working in UK Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) waters, including the Celtic Sea, Irish Sea, and North Sea, as well as in international regions on pre- and post-consenting ornithology and megafauna Digital Aerial Surveys (DAS) for offshore wind farm study areas. 

Since joining ERM, Ally has focused on marine mammals and ornithology, conducting impact assessments for a variety of marine projects, including offshore renewables, restoration projects, carbon capture, floating wind, and subsea cables. She has led and supported baseline studies, collision risk modelling, impact assessments, key consenting advice, and technical deliverables related to marine mammals and ornithology. Her work also includes international projects, such as offshore wind farms in South Korea and France. Additionally, she has diversified into offshore migratory bat impact assessments for Scottish offshore wind farms.

Jonny is a Partner within the Marine CPD Team within ERM. Prior to this he was a Director at MarineSpace, who were acquired by ERM in July 2022.  He has a BSc (Hons) in Marine Biology from University of Wales Swansea and a MSc in Applied Hydrobiology from University of Wales Cardiff. With 25+ years’ experience as a marine environmental consultant, specialising in EIA and consenting of development projects in the marine environment (offshore renewables, marine aggregates, subsea cables, ports/harbours/coastal defence schemes), he has extensive knowledge of many offshore EIA topics and the UK marine consenting regime.

In addition to a long track record of project work around the UK coast, he has particular experience of project work in Welsh waters, including flagship projects such as Morlais Tidal Energy, Project Erebus FLOW, Pembrokeshire Demonstration Zone, META and the Greenlink Interconnector.

Yiwen has 10+ years of experience in renewable energy and offshore sector with a background in naval architecture. She has managed and supported international due diligence assignments for renewable energy projects covering the entire project lifecycle. She has strong track record in acting as lenders’ technical advisor primarily in Asia Pacific (APAC) and Europe, for both fixed-bottom and floating wind, delivering high quality TDD, construction and operational monitoring reports.

She brings strong expertise in EPCI contract risk review, interface management, accessibility and scheduling analysis, operational strategy, and CapEx/Opex and technical risk assessment. She is also experienced in offshore wind market studies, covering merit order analysis for market penetration/future bidding and general review of offshore O&M cost trend.

James is a Consulting Director at ERM with 10+ years’ professional experience within the offshore wind industry. James leads ERM’s offshore wind markets and feasibility team.

He specialises in strategic advisory, early stage offshore wind development, market studies, GIS, feasibility studies and auction support. James has provided market entry and site feasibility support to clients in the majority of offshore wind markets globally across both fixed and floating offshore wind. James has substantial experience supporting public sector clients having supported multiple governments offshore wind programmes. 

Huw has a scientific background with a PhD in coastal processes from Southampton, but has spent most of his career in commercial roles supporting marine infrastructure developments across sectors such as LNG, O&G production and, over the last 20 years, offshore wind. Huw has held roles with Cefas, that of executive director of an offshore survey consultancy undertaking site surveys for array and export cable characterisations, a period with Orsted as Head of UK Environment and Consents and, more recently, as a Partner with ERM providing environmental and sustainability expertise to offshore wind developers and operators.