Diversified supply chains: Europe’s key to sustainable and secure energy
Dr Christian Bruch
A resilient energy supply is the foundation of all social development. It combines sustainability, security, and affordability, forming the basis for the energy transition’s success. The necessity of ensuring this triad is becoming increasingly apparent due to current global challenges. The European gas crisis in 2022, triggered by the Russian attack on Ukraine, showed that we must not make ourselves dependent on individual countries. Instead, we need to diversify our supply chains to ensure a secure and stable energy supply.
The challenge we face goes beyond simply transitioning to cleaner energy sources. Resilience also means that we can count on resilient and competitive supply chains – both at a national and global level. As Mario Draghi highlighted in his recent report, directly addressing supply chain challenges is critical to a successful European industrial policy.
vgbe Congress 2024: Opening speech
Georg Stamatelopoulos
The motto of the vgbe Congress 2024 is ‘Energy transition and challenges for supply chains – mission impossible?’ In addition to the well-known technical, regulatory and political challenges, the availability of capital and the security of supply chains are also prerequisites for the success of the energy transition. Last year, the energy industry once again ‘delivered’ its contribution in terms of climate protection, renewable generation and security of supply. The vgbe has fully embraced the challenge of making the energy transition a technological one. As a technical association for energy plants, our focus is on the technology.
vgbe Congress 2024 – vgbe presents 6 awards for outstanding achievements
vgbe energy
Under the motto “Making success visible”, vgbe recognizes outstanding achievements in the energy sector to highlight key areas of importance to companies in electricity and heat generation. The vgbe Congress 2024 saw the presentation of the vgbe Innovation Award 2024, the vgbe Quality Award 2024 and the vgbe Safety & Health Award 2024, which are the only awards of their kind presented by the association.
Power plant strategy – A proposal
Sebastian Bührdel, Uwe Lenk, Hartmut Liebisch and Uwe Neiß
The defossilisation of energy supply is unavoidable to secure the future. To achieve this, it is not enough to convert electricity production in Germany to wind power, sunlight and biomass. The future increase in electricity demand from data centres, industry, healthcare, trade, agriculture, administration and the population must also be taken into account. If we do not take countermeasures, the combination of an increasing demand for electricity and a similarly increasing weather-dependent electricity production to meet demand will lead to supply bottlenecks. It is therefore necessary to balance electricity supply and demand. The technical measures required for this purpose necessitate considerable investments in generation, transport, distribution, storage and alternative energy sources. Apart from power generation, the majority of the investment is needed to expand the grids. The combination of large high-performance capacity power plants, CHP plants in the medium power range, more efficient and greater use of biomass and various energy storage solutions will enable the gradual development of the future renewable energy supply. The prerequisites are transparency, honesty and participation. Individual, specific supply and value-added contributions create acceptance and a sense of achievement.
Worldwide overview of high-temperature storage (100 to 2,000 °C): technology and demonstration plants
Bärbel Epp
High-temperature heat storage (from 100 °C) is an important pillar for the energy transition in the industrial sector. Some solutions even enable energy storage at temperatures around 2,000 °C – hot enough to supply energy-intensive industrial sectors such as cement and steel. These business opportunities appear to be very attractive. The market for suppliers of high-temperature storage is constantly growing and suppliers report high demand for their products and system solutions. 31 companies from 12 countries participated in a survey in early 2024 and provided information about their technology, customer groups and the TRL of their products. The market study was funded by Natural Resources Canada.
Age-related conversion of wet-cell cooling towers during ongoing power plant and refinery operation without restrictions in cooling capacity availability
Lars Wittenbecher, Jan C. Hintzen and Christoph Meyer
The RKB Leuna/Replacement Measures Cooling Towers project was realised by RKB Raffinerie-Kraftwerks-Betriebs GmbH in cooperation with IQONY Solutions GmbH as Owner‘s Engineer and ENEXIO Service GmbH as general contractor, taking into account all scheduling and quality requirements, as well as adhering to the existing budget – a team effort that can be considered a gratifying success, particularly in view of the operational requirements and constraints, as well as the circumstances and restrictions associated with COVID-19. The project has also laid the foundation for a series of further projects and measures for decarbonisation and modernisation, as part of which the CO2 emissions of the refinery power plant are to be reduced by around 75 % by 2027.
The biomass heating and power plant in Hannover-Stöcken – a contribution to the ‘green transformation’
Detlef Simon
This project, the new biomass heating plant in Stöcken, plays a crucial role in Hannover‘s move to phase out coal by 2026. The biomass heating plant is at the heart of the transformation and, when it goes into operation at the end of 2024/beginning of 2025, it will not only supply 500,000 MWh/a heat and 100,000 MWh/a electricity, but also contribute to a CO2 reduction of about 300,000 t/a compared to the coal-fired power plant. This is a first important step not only to implement the coal phase-out, but also to tackle new, sustainable projects to replace the old power plant units. The article describes the new biomass heating power station with its essential components of firing, steam generator and flue gas cleaning, as well as the integrated flue gas condensation for increasing the fuel utilisation factor.
Potential of reusing the containment vessels of pressurized water reactors in decommissioning as hydrogen storage tanks
Daniel Hofer, Arnulf K. Hörtnagl, Jörg Missbach, Stephanie Renner, Winfried Wilke and Michael Olbricht
Containment vessels of pressurized water reactors (PWRs) are very large spherical steel vessels with diameters of approx. 50 m. They are high-quality equipment developed with great manufacturing and testing effort. Due to the large storage volume combined with a very high maximum permissible pressure of up to 5.3 bar for this size, unusually large quantities of hydrogen can be stored with high efficiency due to the low compression and cooling effort compared to high-pressure or liquefaction processes. For the use of the vessels as large-volume hydrogen storage for power plants, technically easy-to-implement concept proposals are presented to contribute to the rapid implementation of energy transformation.
Unlocking the untapped potential of industrial electrification
Eurelectric
There is no doubt that electrification is the most efficient and cost-effective way to decarbonise the European economy. But to drive faster decarbonisation, we need to electrify much faster. Here, industry can play a big role. Industrial customers represent a third of current power demand with only 4% of industrial high-emission heating processes being electrified. The sector yields a massive untapped potential to bolster power demand while decarbonising their industrial processes. This electric switch will thus incentivise greater investment in clean generation, driving up the rate of electrification across the economy and decarbonising the continent in the process.
DNV: Energy Transition Outlook 2024 – A global and regional forecast to 2050
DNV
What will the global energy mix look like in 2050? When will energy-related emissions peak? What is the forecast for offshore wind, CCS, and hydrogen? How is heightened focus on energy security impacting the shift to renewable energy? DNV´s Energy Transition Outlook provides best estimates to answer these and many other questions. The forecast to 2050 is based on an independent model of the world’s energy system and is a comprehensive analysis including development of: Renewable energy technology scaling and costs (wind, solar PV, hydrogen, CCS, etc); Energy demand by sector, source, and region; Energy efficiency and the impact of AI and digitalization; Energy supply by source; Electricity and grid infrastructure; Energy expenditure; Policies driving the transition; Global emissions; 10 world regions
Editorial
Dr Christian Bruch
President and Chief Executive Officer of
Siemens Energy AG
Diversified supply chains: Europe’s key to sustainable and secure energy
Dear readers of the vgbe energy journal,
A resilient energy supply is the foundation of all social development. It combines sustainability, security, and affordability, forming the basis for the energy transition’s success. The necessity of ensuring this triad is becoming increasingly apparent due to current global challenges. The European gas crisis in 2022, triggered by the Russian attack on Ukraine, showed that we must not make ourselves dependent on individual countries. Instead, we need to diversify our supply chains to ensure a secure and stable energy supply.
The challenge we face goes beyond simply transitioning to cleaner energy sources. Resilience also means that we can count on resilient and competitive supply chains – both at a national and global level. As Mario Draghi highlighted in his recent report, directly addressing supply chain challenges is critical to a successful European industrial policy.
The path to a sustainable future requires unprecedented investment in renewable and flexible generation technologies, renewable energy storage, and grid infrastructure. But beyond investment, there is a need for a strategic review of the entire supply chain ecosystem.
Global political dynamics have highlighted the vulnerabilities in our supply chains. A strong dependence on individual markets for critical raw materials and strategic components risks exposing the cleantech industry to geopolitical tensions.
In this context, the traditional “lowest price first” approach no longer works. Resilience has its price, which must be recognized and integrated into market structures. Resilience means change: from cost focus to value focus.
It needs a level playing field and qualitative criteria in tenders instead of just focusing on the lowest price. Otherwise, there is a risk that Europe will lose other industries to China, following the solar industry. Europe should not afford this. Europe needs a robust, holistic industrial policy encompassing fair competition and robust supply chains.
The challenges in the supply chain are complex. From purchasing and sourcing from different regions to the critical raw materials we depend on, every link in the chain needs to be optimized. Diversifying supply chains and investing in alternative sources are crucial steps in this direction. For example, more than 90 % of the rare earths classified by the EU as critical come from China. This shows the urgency of developing alternative sources and investing in their capacities to reduce our dependence and strengthen the resilience of our supply chains.
Building a resilient supply chain also requires closer coordination with regulators to simplify guidelines and standards. And companies need to develop a forward-looking purchasing strategy. This includes long-term forecasting, coupled with inventory management and safety stocks, to anticipate and mitigate potential disruptions.
Building resilient supply chains is complex. To establish them, we need fair competition and thus a move away from the “lowest price first” approach, the establishment of trustworthy partnerships, and a forward-looking purchasing strategy. All of this supports a robust European industrial policy, which is essential for the success of the energy transition.