With a modern and streamlined concept, focused on strategic-technical issues and plenty of space for networking and professional discussions, this year’s vgbe Congress took place in Antwerp/Belgium from 14 to 15 September.
With the second largest European seaport, the historic city of Antwerp is of outstanding importance for the European energy supply and was accordingly an excellent venue for this year’s vgbe Congress, which was successfully held with a large number of domestic and foreign participants.
Special mention should be made of the participation of a Turkish delegation as part of a study tour of the Turkish-German Energy Partnership. The delegation, led by Dr. Izzet Alagöz, CEO of the Electricity Generation Corporation EÜAS, the largest public electricity supplier in Türkiye, was particularly interested in flexible operation of thermal power plants and had many opportunities at this year’s congress to exchange views with high-ranking representatives of the industry. auszutauschen.
Hubertus Altmann gave the opening speech on behalf of Dr Georgios Stamatelopoulos. The deputy chairman of the vgbe board addressed the challenges in the energy industry which had increased significantly since the last vgbe Congress in September 2021. Secure, sustainable and affordable energy supply is the core of any functioning economy and society. In this context, the vgbe Board pointed to the procurement problems caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the political framework conditions and the consequences of climate change and emphasised that precisely because of the tense supply situation, the climate protection goals pursued by the energy industry should not be disregarded despite exploding energy prices.
Hubertus Altmann
Deputy chairman of the vgbe board
For example, the low river levels this summer and the associated problems with coal procurement or the lack of meltwater for run-of-river power plants showed that there was an urgent need for action. The energy sector is ready to take the necessary steps. However, all efforts and solutions to overcome the current crisis and to ensure a sustainable, climate-neutral supply always meant technology, and technology is vgbe energy! At this point, Hubertus Altmann focused on some important milestones of the association’s work in the past year and explained some issues, such as digitalisation in hydropower and wind power with the vgbe digitalisation barometers, the new database for benchmarking wind power plants, the activities in the hydrogen sector, such as the vgbe position paper on H2 readiness and the use of RDS-PP® in a fish farming project in Iceland. Further activities of the association as well as the new structure “vgbe2025” were later presented in a detailed report by the vgbe Managing Director Dr Oliver Then.
Presentation of the vgbe awards
After the opening of the congress by Hubertus Altmann, the Innovation Award 2022 and the Health and Safety Award 2022 were presented.
vgbe Innovation Award
The Innovation Award has been awarded by the VGB-FORSCHUNGSSTIFTUNG for more than 30 years. This year, Lukas Kasper (TU Vienna) was awarded the vgbe Innovation Award for his work on a digital twin platform tailored to the requirements of industrial energy systems. Digital twins have enormous potential to improve the efficiency of industrial plants by enabling numerous digital applications. Lukas Kasper’s research aims at the standardised use of a digital twins in the energy sector.
(f.l.t.r.: Hubertus Altmann, Lukas Kasper, vgbe Innovation Award winner 2022, Dr. Oliver Then)
vgbe-Safety and Health Award
The vgbe Safety and Health Award emphasises the importance of safety and health in the generation and storage of electricity focusing on humans. This year, the vgbe Safety and Health Award was presented for the tenth time. The current winner is Vattenfall Wind Offshore with its safety programme “Odelgard: The Culture Programme for Offshore Wind”. David Marples and Jakob Nielsen received the award on behalf of Vattenfall Wind Offshore. The programme is characterised by empowering employees to make the right decisions at the right time. A “culture of care” is created where Vattenfall Wind employees and its contractors are intrinsically motivated.
(f.l.t.r.: Hubertus Altmann, Deputy chairman of the vgbe board, Jakob Nielsen und David Marples, Vattenfall Wind Offshore, Dr. Oliver Then, Executive Managing Director, vgbe energy)
IFollowing the key note speech by Gerrit Jan Schaeffer, General Manager of the Belgian think tank “EnergyVille”, on the topic of “Energy transition and security of supply in Europe”, the Congress continued in the afternoon with the plenary lectures ( on YouTube ) and the plenary discussion ( on YouTube ) which focused on the current situation regarding security of supply and energy prices. The technical possibilities with regard to climate neutrality and redispatch were highlighted. The discussion participants again emphasised the necessity of a rapid market ramp-up of hydrogen that is as green as possible. In conclusion it was stated that the companies in the energy sector are doing their utmost to maintain security of supply in the electricity and heating sector. However, politicians were urged to create the necessary framework conditions to enable companies to pursue their goals in a timely and targeted manner.
Gerrit Jan Schaeffer
The first day of the congress ended with a delicious evening event, sponsored by ENGIE, at the Chocolate Nation Museum. Here, the congress participants had the opportunity to continue the discussions and technical talks of the first congress day.
The second day of the congress was divided into four sections:
- Market and Regulation
- Decarbonisation
- Renewables and Storage
- Repurposing
In a contribution by Carsten Pape et al, the results of the vgbe study “Security of supply 2025” were presented. Within the framework of this study, the security of supply in Germany was assessed, taking into account all renewable energies, the required reserve power plants, the European electricity market and the German electricity grid. The focus of the study, most of its modelling had been completed before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was on the expansion of fluctuating renewable energies and the achievement of climate targets. The results of the study show that security of supply on the electricity market in Germany is guaranteed despite the phase-out of nuclear energy and coal. The analysis of the electricity grid has shown that the use of power plants in grid operation (e.g. redispatch, use of the grid reserve) is able to overcome the bottlenecks for the present scenario in 2025.
In the section “Decarbonisation”, the presentation by Alexander Tremel and Rolf Schumacher “Haru Oni efuels – from vision to reality” should be highlighted. The Haru Oni project demonstrates a broad spectrum of innovative, climate-relevant technologies bundled at one location. Synthetic fuel is produced from water, wind energy and CO2 captured from air. It is a liquid, CO2-neutral energy carrier that can be used, for example, in heavy transport, aviation or the chemical industry.
In the section “Renewables and Storage”, the contribution by Martin Schönberg “Hydropower and taxonomy – Level playing field for renewables or imbalance?” should be mentioned. In his contribution, Martin Schönberg showed that a level playing field for energy generation technologies at EU level is an illusion, as neither the political decision-makers nor the energy industry are striving for it. The EU taxonomy is a very good example, firstly to illustrate how unequally renewables are treated and secondly to understand the unspoken paradigm shift in EU policy: away from technology neutrality towards the promotion of specific technologies.
The programme with sufficient breaks allowed enough time for discussion and was accordingly used by participants to broadly discuss the current contributions and challenging topics.
As with all vgbe events, personal encounters and the expansion of networks were once again high on the agenda at this year’s vgbe Congress. The lively discussions and conversations in the lecture hall and on the fringes of the event as well as at the get-together and the evening event showed that the vgbe organisation team once again created the right framework and met participants´ expectations.
The vgbe team would like to thank ENGIE and Uniper for their sponsorship as well as all speakers and participants who contributed significantly to the successful realisation of this year’s vgbe Congress.
The vgbe organisation team is already looking ahead to the German capital and is looking forward to another exciting vgbe Congress 2023, which will take place on 20 and 21 September 2023 in Berlin with interesting speakers, an international audience, value-creating discussions and an attractive side programme.
