h2-netzwerk-ruhr Celebrates Ten-Year Anniversary
The location and time were deliberately chosen: To mark the end of hard coal mining in Germany, h2-netzwerk-ruhr celebrated its 10-year anniversary at Zeche Ewald in Herten with a major technical workshop and a ceremony attended by a total of 150 participants.
The anniversary celebrations began with a technical workshop on the topic “Hydrogen for Public Transport & Commercial Vehicles in the Ruhr Metropolis … why now?”. The high-level presentations addressed the perspectives that hydrogen and fuel cell technologies offer the Ruhr metropolis today and tomorrow. “The energy transition cannot succeed without hydrogen,” was the unanimous consensus. Renewable electricity from wind power and photovoltaics must be stored – and this is possible on a large scale with hydrogen. Ideally, hydrogen is produced from green electricity via electrolysis – and can be stored centrally or decentrally and transported without losses through pipelines. The experts who presented at the workshop were
- Thorsten Herbert, Head of Transport and Infrastructure, NOW GmbH
- Frank Koch, EnergieAgentur.NRW
- Michael Weber, h2-netzwerk-ruhr e.V./ EnergieAgentur.NRW
- Philipp Dietrich, H2 Energy AG (Switzerland), CEO
- Jens Conrad, Head of Alternative Drives, Regionalverkehr Köln GmbH
- Andreas Meyer, Head of Bus Technology, WSW mobil GmbH
- Carsten Stabenau, Innovation Management, Westnetz GmbH
- Peter Krichel, SPNV Planning, Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr AöR
Vehicle exhibitors included Regionalverkehr Köln, Westnetz, Wirtschaftsbetriebe Duisburg, the Center for Fuel Cell Technology, Air Liquide, and Autohaus Glückauf.
WDR used the anniversary as an opportunity to report on hydrogen-powered mobility with an extensive feature, which can be found here.
Major Ceremony with High-Level Speeches
Christoph Dammermann, State Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitalization and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
In the subsequent ceremony, Christoph Dammermann, State Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitalization and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, emphasized in his speech the high potential of hydrogen technology and the state government’s active efforts to advance this technology in NRW. Dr. Ulrich Bünger from Ludwig-Bülkow-Systemtechnik GmbH (LBST), an independent technology and strategy consultancy, presented on the status of global development in this field. Prof. Dr. Bernd Kriegesmann, President of Westfälische Hochschule, spoke about innovation barriers and strategies for overcoming these barriers. Volker Lindner, Chairman of h2-netzwerk-ruhr, used the festive occasion to look back on the association’s ten years of work and outlined the goals of future activities in a speech.
