Explaining technical products at energy fairs

8

stand types; large equipment usually lands on an island layout

Stand types

Representing scale with a section

Most products in the energy sector do not fit in a hall. A wind turbine blade runs to eighty metres, a transformer weighs tens of tonnes, a boiler occupies the volume of a building. Explaining these with photographs falls flat: a photograph carries no scale, and every company’s photograph looks like the next. After twenty stands showing the same image, the visitor remembers none of them.

The answer is a full-size section: two metres of the blade root, half a metre of the cable, a single cell from the panel, an inverter with its housing opened. Touching that piece, the visitor builds the whole product in their head. What a photograph cannot do, the weight and texture of the material does.

When the section is placed, its weight and the floor load are part of the calculation. A few hundred kilos of cross-section sits on the hall slab rather than a platform, with a spreader plate beneath it. At the stand design stage its position is fixed before anything else. How it will be lifted, what vehicle brings it and where it goes after tear-down are settled at the same moment.

The schematic: where the product sits

An energy buyer does not buy a single product; they add a part to a chain that runs from generation to grid. So the most-read surface on the stand is often the system schematic: generation, conversion, transmission, storage, and where the product sits along it. The schematic also states your scope, that is, where you begin and where you stop.

Keep the schematic plain. A flow diagram with fifteen boxes goes unread; five boxes with the product highlighted can be understood from the aisle. A single line of technical claim beneath it beats a long paragraph and keeps working when no member of staff is free.

Numbers are part of the graphics in this sector. Efficiency, loss figures, operating temperature range and expected service life are set in legible type on the panel. Engineers want to see those values without asking, and if they have to ask, they usually walk on instead. Print the measurement conditions beside them, or the figures cannot be compared. Name the standard they were measured against too, since the same value comes out differently under a different one.

Meeting an engineer

Conversations at an energy fair gather at two extremes: a five-minute technical question in the aisle and an hour-long project discussion at a table. The stand has to make room for both. A stand with only seating misses the short question; a stand with nowhere to sit cannot hold the project discussion.

For the short one, standing space beside the sectioned piece and a high table are enough. For the long one you need seats, a screen and room to open a project drawing. Separating the two physically lets both work, and a display element between them is separation enough.

Having technical staff on the stand matters more than sales staff in this sector. The questions go deep, a salesperson stalls on the second one and the visitor notices. Set the team plan before the show and write down the hours when the engineer is on the stand; how we work is described on our about page.

If the product does not fit, should we use a model?

A model conveys scale but not material. Where possible, pair it with a real sectioned piece; each covers what the other misses.

Do screens or printed panels work better?

Fixed information on panels, changing information on screens. A printed schematic can be read at any moment; a screen makes the viewer wait.