Last fall heralded the start of a new era in Germany’s hydrogen events sector. The trade fair and conference once known as f-cell, organized by Peter Sauber Messen und Kongress for over two decades, took place in Stuttgart on October 4 and 5 – this time under the sole direction of exhibition center operator Messe Stuttgart. The venue, located right next to the city’s airport, welcomed 60 speakers presenting the latest developments as well as 126 exhibitors who displayed their products across 5,000 square meters (53,800 square feet) of floor space. Given the ever-increasing number of hydrogen events and destinations, however, the key question is whether the city of Stuttgart, and the state of Baden-Württemberg in general, can keep pace with the competition.
The opening address signaled the official start of the conference under its new name of hy-fcell, the “hy” prefix added to demonstrate the equal footing given to hydrogen and fuel cells at the event. In future this new title will be used for international expos and conferences in a variety of locations – for example in Saudi Arabia which will play host from March 6 to 8, 2023. This arrangement was put in place as part of the visit by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the Middle Eastern nation.
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As well as switching to a new venue in Stuttgart, the events program had also undergone a shake-up. Things kicked off the evening before the opening with a tour of local bars and eateries where participants who had arrived early could meet in a relaxed atmosphere. At the end of the first day of the conference, a dedicated Networking Night was held directly at the trade fair in the International Congress Center Stuttgart (ICS). The hy-fcell awards in three categories were presented during the opening ceremony.
Running in parallel to the conference was the new Speakers’ Corner stage. The main sponsor of hy-fcell, the US federal state of New Mexico, was one of the presenters that took to the podium and invited potentially interested parties to establish the region as a hydrogen hub in the United States. Mark Roper from the Economic Development Department had traveled to the event especially, bringing with him a delegation that included Cabinet Secretary Alicia Keyes and members of the management team from Pajarito Power and Universal Hydrogen.
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For several years from 2008 onward, the f-cell was held at Stuttgart’s exhibition center under the umbrella of the Battery&Storage show – with Messe Stuttgart serving as co-organizer. Despite trying a range of different formats over a number of years, a critical mass of exhibitors failed to materialize at that location and Peter Sauber returned to the Haus der Wirtschaft building in the city center in 2018. Now Messe Stuttgart has started afresh, ensuring plenty of time for preparation, and has managed to achieve a breakthrough by attracting over 2,000 attendees to booked-out halls at the original exhibition center, as Stefan Lohnert, president of Messe Stuttgart, reported. He said: “I’m particularly delighted by the international reach of hy-fcell – with exhibitors and speakers from around the world and a notable 20 percent proportion of international visitors.”
Concern for Stuttgart as a trade fair destination
To date, Baden-Württemberg and the metropolitan region of Stuttgart has played a globally important role in the automotive sector – as well as in the expanding area of hydrogen and fuel cells. Yet Andre Baumann, state secretary of Baden-Württemberg’s environment ministry, sees this position under threat. As he remarked in his speech, he has watched the decline of the coal industry in Nordrhein-Westfalen with concern, saying: “If we don’t want to become the Ruhr region of the 21st century, we need to be linked up to the hydrogen infrastructure.”
He expressed his hope that the area would be connected to the European Hydrogen Backbone system. Nevertheless this is some way off, he continued, since Germany’s northern states openly admit they will make locally produced green hydrogen available to their own industries first before transporting it south. “Not that we’re being left behind.” However something needs to be done in the weeks and months ahead, urged Baumann.
In summer 2022, the German government passed its Easter Package of energy policy amendments designed to accelerate the expansion of renewable energies, a move that it hopes will foster substantial innovation in hydrogen projects. According to the new raft of measures, tenders for inventive concepts that incorporate hydrogen-based electricity storage will be started at the end of this year. The tenders are expected to provide support for schemes with plant combinations comprising onshore wind turbines or solar plants that feature hydrogen as a storage gas and that will feed power into the grid via a common interconnection point. Note that this will exclusively apply to electrolytic hydrogen that is used for electricity generation. It is expected that 400 megawatts of installed capacity will be initially put out for tender in 2023. This figure is then set to increase every year, reaching 1,000 megawatts by 2028.
WindEnergy in Hamburg and Husum Wind in Nordfriesland take place biennially in alternating years. The Hamburg event offers a more international flavor while the trade show held in Husum, famously described as the “gray town on the sea” by poet Theodor Storm, has a more German focus. In October 2022, H2-international asked the exhibition company from the latter about the importance of hydrogen for Husum.
To what extent will hydrogen play a role at Husum Wind in the future?
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Due to its primary importance for German industry, the topic of green hydrogen will once again be a particular focus for Husum Wind next year. The trade fair is creating a dedicated platform by providing a separate hydrogen-themed space in Hall 5 for the first time along with an accompanying forum program. It will also offer networking opportunities for leading technology companies in this sector to meet final off-takers.
Will there be a continuation of the previous New Energy fair?
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The New Energy fair was held for the last time in 2018 and won’t appear again in this form. Instead there will be the Future Energy & Mobility Days which will run in Husum from March 9 to 12, 2023. It’s the first trade show that will present all cutting-edge technologies from the mobility and energy sectors in one location – from electric scooters to giant agricultural machinery, from wall chargers to photovoltaic plants and micro wind turbines. It’s a chance to pick up and try out the technology of tomorrow. In addition to the large-scale exhibition there will be a program of information and conferences on exciting, forward-looking topics.
What format will the watt_2.0 conference take over the coming years?
Husum Wind and watt_2.0 will continue cooperating in 2023. The H2.0 Conference “Green hydrogen economy in the regions” organized by watt_2.0 will take place as part of Husum Wind on the day prior to the trade fair on September 11, 2023. The “Industry meets Renewables” conference will be held on the first day of the show, and there will be an open expert forum running throughout the four days of the fair.
Wind-derived hydrogen – it’s a term that’s been bandied about for years in the energy sector. In the past it was more of a blue-sky concept than a realistic prospect. Just a handful of demonstration projects were looking into the fundamental practicality of harnessing wind power for the purposes of hydrogen production. 2022 could well be the year that represents the start of the wind-hydrogen era. While relatively little has actually come to fruition, the plans for investment and construction are now so numerous and so definite that the arrival of wind-powered hydrogen production is virtually a foregone conclusion. This was certainly apparent at WindEnergy and H2Expo, which ran concurrently from September 27 to 30 in Hamburg.
After a four-year hiatus, the WindEnergy trade show was once again staged at Hamburg’s exhibition campus – live and in person. Due to the pandemic, the 2020 event was only available in an online format. Looking back, Bernd Aufderheide, president of Hamburg Messe und Congress, took stock of the much-altered political situation: “We are now living in a very different world.”
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A total of around 30,000 visitors made the trip to Germany’s second-biggest city. The halls were well populated with roughly 1,400 exhibitors and the atmosphere was buzzing, particularly at the evening booth parties. It was therefore with fitting optimism that Aufderheide announced that the H2Expo & Conference will, from 2023, be a stand-alone trade fair – held jointly with WindEnergy only every two years.
“We need impetus and prospects to enable the rapid expansion of the wind and hydrogen economy. […] It’s time to put climate first.”
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Bernd Aufderheide, board chairman at Hamburg Messe und Congress
Habeck opens WindEnergy
The star guest at the trade fair was German economy minister Robert Habeck who was invited to open the exhibition. That he chose to appear in person despite the then volatile political situation, with Germany’s coalition government embroiled in arguments over the country’s gas bill support scheme, speaks volumes about how much this sector means to him.
This was reflected in his keynote speech in which he emphasized the central role of both wind as an electricity generator and hydrogen as an energy carrier. He stated that he did not understand why some German states continue to hide behind a “10H” rule (which in local legislation dictates a large minimum gap between a wind turbine and residential buildings) and are not meeting the required expansion targets. Habeck said: “It’s not the time for business as usual. If the groundwork is not carried out, we will fail.”
He also took the opportunity to announce that Germany’s national hydrogen strategy would be revised before the year was up. What’s more, he indicated that the upswing was already underway, citing the approved IPCEI projects as an example. “The market will ramp up much more quickly than expected,” the minister declared.
Regional and international importance of H2Expo
The H2Expo & Conference, which according to Aufderheide was held in this form for the first time, saw 60 exhibitors gracing the floor in Hall A2 alone. At its center, organized as part of the hydrogen conference, was an extremely diverse program of presentations and podium discussions that ran across the four days of the event – available free of charge and accessible to all participants. That said, the exhibition entry fees were themselves relatively expensive, not that the pricing seemed a particular deterrent given the high number of attendees. The content covered a range of subjects including production, transportation and utilization of hydrogen on land and at sea as well as global value chains and the large-scale build-out of local infrastructure and guidelines on the harmonization of international standards.The limelight was shared by both regional and international projects.
The German city of Bremen was the place to be and be seen in 2022, courtesy of the Hydrogen Technology Expo Europe. It was the first time that such a large and lively hydrogen trade fair had been staged on the continent. In the space of just a year, the organizer had managed to nearly double the number of exhibitors from 180 to 350. On October 19 and 20, 2022, over 5,000 delegates – most of whom were trade visitors – made their way to the two exhibition halls. Such was the level of attendance that at times booth staff were given little pause between conversations. Nevertheless the event’s future remains uncertain. Its proximity, both in terms of timing and location, to H2Expo in Hamburg means that there can only really be room for one show.
No two ways about it, Trans-Global Events did an excellent job. In contrast to German fairs, the British conference and exhibition organizer chose the right moment to focus on hydrogen and succeeded in drawing many industry players from Germany and beyond to Bremen, thanks to its attractive concept and professional delivery. Part of the HY-5 initiative involving Germany’s five most northerly states, Bremen is now poised to become one of the major protagonists in a future hydrogen economy.
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Considering the strength of this trade show, its rival H2Expo, which according to current plans is to take place without WindEnergy on September 26 and 27, is unlikely to stand a chance should the Hydrogen Technology Expo Europe actually go ahead on September 27 and 28. Two other German events are also slated for the fall: the H2.0 Conference in the northern town of Husum on September 11 and f-cell in Stuttgart on September 13 and 14. The need to merge the events in northern Germany or rethink the timetable would appear to be inevitable.
Kathryn Boyd, deputy trade commissioner for Europe at the UK’s Department for International Trade, paid tribute not just to the organizer but also to the German government for its rapid switch to renewable energies in such a large industrial nation. This set the bar extremely high for others, she said.
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From mobile charging robot to battery electrolyzer stack
Spread across the almost 15,000-square-meter (161,000-square-foot) exhibition space were a number of newcomers, such as Devinn. The Czech development company showcased its mobile charging robot H2BOT – a remotely controlled electric vehicle charger that runs on hydrogen. The presented prototype features a fuel cell system from Nuvera. The engineers from Jablonec nad Nisou are, however, open to additional development partners and are on the lookout for initial customers who want to assist drivers of electric vehicles. Rather than having to travel to a charging point, “instead the charging point comes to them,” explained Devinn CEO Luboš Hajský.
Another company pursuing an unusual idea is Battolyser Systems from the Netherlands, whose technology combines a battery and an electrolyzer in a single unit. In 2016, Fokko Mulder’s research group demonstrated on a laboratory scale that a nickel-iron battery is also capable of producing hydrogen when overcharged. It is understood that a reference plant is already in use at energy supplier Vattenfall and will continue to be operated by RWE which has since taken over the site. Meanwhile work is underway on a second production generation which will hopefully be ready for commercialization at the end of 2024, H2-international was told in Bremen.
When the German companies exited the Desertec Industrial Initiative in 2014, many had considered the project a failure. But the network has developed further – and will now also be visible again in Europe, as Dii Desert Energy. Is now when energy will come out of the desert?
In 2009, the Desertec Industrial Initiative (Dii) started, with a lot of media hype. Especially German corporations wanted to build solar power plants in the southern Mediterranean countries. Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) was the technology of choice at the time. It was cheaper than photovoltaics and could, with thermal energy storage, produce electricity continuously. The power plants were to supply electricity not only to the region, but also for export to Europe.
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But it went more haltingly than some had hoped. Most of the German companies, among them Deutsche Bank, MunichRE, Eon, Bosch and Siemens, left Desertec in 2014 – still during the construction phase of the solar plant Noor in Morocco. Innogy remained as the last German company, until its acquisition by Eon and incorporation into Dii.
Since then, hardly anything has been heard in Germany of Desertec. Many got the impression that the idea had been abandoned. But in fact, activities have since shifted increasingly to the Arabian Peninsula and the new office in Dubai – even if the official headquarters of today’s Dii Desertec Energy GmbH is still in Munich. Also there meet the core members of the initiative for a conference year after year. Dii founder and president Paul Van Son as well as Cornelius Matthes, CEO of the organization since January 2021, courted the idea of desert energy with the oil states of the Persian Gulf.
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Today, Dii Desert Energy is a political and economic network that stretches over several continents in which many major companies from the energy and hydrogen industries are engaged. For a long time, the shareholding partners were exclusively the Saudi Arabian state-backed energy corporation ACWA Power and the Chinese utility State Grid. To the “Lead Partners,” the gold sponsors so to speak, today belong four holdings, of which two are from Saudi Arabia, one from Morocco and one from the Netherlands. The extended circle consists of a good 50 “Associate Partners.” Among them are research institute Fraunhofer ISE, PV manufacturer Suntech, Shell and the Norwegian H2 company Nel. Also Thyssenkrupp, as a market leader for electrolysis plants, had been one of these partners since 2017 – and became a shareholding partner at the beginning of 2022. That made the German press, after a long time, pay attention again.
Jorgo Chatzimarkakis of Hydrogen Europe called years ago for hydrogen pipelines that would transport fuel gas from Africa to Central Europe and stated, “We (Germany) will be an importing country of renewable energies, but an exporting country of electrolyzers.” On the other hand, Carsten Körnig, managing director of BSW Solar (German solar association) said that to import renewable energies in large quantities would not be possible, because other European countries would also stake demand for it. Because of this, according to Körnig, more emphasis should be placed on domestic green electricity generation. (S. Geitmann)
The desert power grid has also changed technologically. Instead of plans for power lines, Dii Desert Energy presented at the beginning of 2020 the “MENA Hydrogen Alliance.” It’s for ammonia and methanol in addition to green hydrogen. Van Son, however, stressed that electricity generation is still a substantial part of the Desertec vision today – also and especially for local needs. Depending on the distribution of peaks in the load profile, he also sees a niche for solar thermal power plants in some regions.
The portents for energy coming out of the desert are better today than they were during the first attempt. The pressure for climate protection has grown strongly. Governments and businesses around the world have already included in their climate plans megatonnes of green hydrogen as replacement for oil and gas. And concrete projects are also popping up ever faster on the map. The best known of these is probably the futuristic conceptualized city Neom, which is to appear in the Northwest of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea. Wind and solar power plants with a capacity of over four gigawatts are to supply not only the city. Also, around 650 tonnes of hydrogen daily is to be generated in Neom, mainly for further processing to green ammonia.
As to the participating businesses and persons, the same names can always be encountered. The electrolyzers are to come from Thyssenkrupp. Managing director of the project partnership is Peter Terium, formerly with Innogy and RWE. Project partnership Neom, the energy corporation ACWA Power and the technical gas producer Air Products announced in July 2020 that they would together invest 5 billion USD in the project. Construction has now begun – operations are to start mid-decade.
To learn a little more about the current status of this project, H2-international interviewed Cornelius Matthes, the CEO of Dii Desert Energy.
H2-international: Mr. Matthes, you say in lectures and publications that companies involved in Desertec will within this decade be able to supply the quantities of hydrogen that Europe requires. It sounds sincere. What is the basis for your confidence?
Matthes: We know the announcements and plans of our partners. These include projects such as Neom Green Hydrogen, which alone is to produce 650 tonnes of hydrogen daily, but also other projects from ACWA Power, Masdar, DEME, Linde or EDF. These are large companies whose track records show that they can handle such projects. If we include projects that are already between the stages of announcement and implementation planning, that comes to more than the 10 million tonnes per year that Europe wants to import by 2030. With the introduction of the Hydrogen Accelerator, as part of the REPowerEU plan, the production and import targets for Europe have been approximately quadrupled. That means, from the 2×40-GW initiative that we, together with our partner Hydrogen Europe, presented to Frans Timmermans in April 2020, is now a 2×160-GW initiative. So by the end of the decade, the MENA region will be able to supply the hydrogen that Europe needs.
Production capacity is one thing. But for green hydrogen to become an alternative to fossil hydrogen or other energy sources, it must also be affordable.
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