Tuesday 15 September | 9.00am – 2.30pm
Women In Renewables, the only all-female energy conference returns on Tuesday 15 September in Belfast.
The Women in Renewables Conference brings together women from across the energy sector to connect, learn and be inspired. This one day event creates space for honest conversations about career progression, leadership and the skills needed to thrive in a rapidly evolving renewables industry.
Designed for professionals at every career stage, the conference showcases female role models, practical insights and shared experiences that reflect the breadth of opportunity within renewable electricity and the wider energy system.
What to expect at Women in Renewable 2026
Sara Tinsley at Smart Energy talking about Women in Renewables
The programme will feature all-female panel discussions and interactive sessions focused on real world challenges and opportunities facing women working in renewables. Topics will include leadership, career development, visibility, confidence and navigating change, with contributions from experienced leaders and emerging voices across the sector.
There will be dedicated time for networking, allowing delegates to build meaningful connections and expand their professional networks in a supportive and inclusive environment.
Women In Renewables will once again be hosted in the Linenhall Suite at Ten Square Hotel Belfast. Delegates will be welcomed by a fresh bakery breakfast and have a hot fork buffet lunch.
Why attend Women in Renewables
Attendees will leave with renewed confidence, practical tools for career development and a stronger sense of connection to the wider renewables community. The conference is also an opportunity to hear directly from women who are shaping the future of energy and to gain insight into different career paths across the industry.
This event is open to women working in renewable energy, energy policy, engineering, development, operations, academia, the supply chain and related fields.
About Women in Renewables
Women in Renewables is a RenewableNI initiative focused on increasing visibility, supporting career progression and strengthening networks for women across the renewable energy industry. Through events, mentoring and shared learning, the programme champions a more diverse and inclusive sector.
If you are interested in sponsoring this event, please contact Judith Rance.
Suggestions of speakers and topics to discuss are also welcomed.
Women in Renewables 2026 Keynote session
You’ve Already Done the Hard Thing – Now is the Time to Remember
Ask most women whether they are ready to be a mentor or a leader and they will hesitate. Not because they lack the experience, the wisdom, or the instinct for it, but because somewhere along the way they forgot what they are actually capable of, and have been waiting to tick one more box before allowing themselves to claim it.
This session is the moment they stop waiting.
In this keynote and interactive workshop, Joanna Denton invites participants to redefine what it means to be a powerhouse, moving the conversation away from job titles and conference stages and toward the moments of quiet courage that actually shape a career and a life. The moments that didn’t make the CV. The ones they barely registered at the time. The ones that, when named out loud in a room full of women who recognise exactly what it took, land differently than they ever expected.
Through the Powerhouse List exercise, participants surface their own history of courage and share it with the women beside them, beginning to understand at a level that goes beyond intellectual knowing that the qualities that make an exceptional mentor and leader are already inside them. They have been there all along.
Facilitated at each table by women who have already completed their mentor training and are stepping into that role in real time, this session creates a rare moment of collective recognition in a room far more used to focusing on what still needs to be done than on how far they have already come.
What participants will walk away with
A concrete, personal record of the moments they have already shown up with courage, clarity, and conviction – their own Powerhouse List, in their own words, to keep and return to when things feel hard.
A shift in how they understand what leadership and mentoring actually require – not perfection, not another title, but the willingness to draw on real experience and share it honestly, which it turns out they have been doing for years.
Joanna Denton is an executive coach and keynote speaker with over 25 years of international business experience, including 18 years in Big Four companies in the UK and Luxembourg. Since leaving her tax career in 2014, she has spent more than a decade coaching senior leaders and high-performing professionals across law, accounting, consulting, and beyond – helping them to quiet the noise, reconnect to who they are, and create real movement on what matters.
A two-time TEDx speaker, Joanna works through her Brave Spaces methodology, built on the belief that her clients are not broken and do not need fixing – they just need to remember who they already are.
