Defying the Energy Price Crisis and Sustainably Tackling Our Energy Future

We met in the midst of the crisis turmoil on 27 September 2022. The German government had just set up the Expert Commission on Gas and Heat to draw up proposals for dealing with the gas price crisis. The results of the “stress test” had just come in – with different political interpretations as to the consequences. The President of the European Commission, Dr. Ursula von der Leyen, had launched her proposal to skim off windfall profits from electricity producers, while at the same time the gas levy was the subject of controversial debate. The fact that we had a full house was indicative of people’s need to be able to openly discuss current concerns on the one hand and positive plans on the other in a familiar specialist forum.

The opening presentation by Dr. Barbara Hendricks, who negotiated the Paris Agreement for Germany in 2015 as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Housing, and Reactor Safety, was enlightening. She gave us insights into the origins and circumstances of a major negotiating event involving almost every nation in the world. The outcome was an agreement to make every effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide to zero by the middle of the century and so limit the global temperature rise preferably to below two degrees relative to pre-industrial times.

“We need a master plan that encompasses electricity, gas and hydrogen.”

Dirk Güsewell is a member of the Board of Management of EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG and, as Chief Operating Officer for System-Critical Infrastructure, is particularly called upon these days. For him, “the grid infrastructure has become the integrator, the pacemaker and enabler for the energy transition”. He complains that there is no holistic vision for the future, despite obvious interactions between the energy sources. There is no orchestration or steering toward a coordinated, long-term solution. And so electricity and gas grid development plans are being developed side by side and independently of each other – not to mention hydrogen development. That needs to change. Tobias Egeler, Head of Grid Management (Business IT) at TransnetBW GmbH, also illustrated how necessary the connection between the grid and the market is in renewable energy systems. The current crisis situation and our clear dependence on Russia were outlined by Prof. Dr. Ing. Kai Hufendiek from the Institute of Energy Economics and Rational Energy Use (IER) at the University of Stuttgart and Dr. Felix Christian Matthes from Öko-Institut e.V., while Dr. Wiebke Lüke from WEW GmbH explained her view that the most promising potential solutions lie “

in the world’s smallestmolecule”.

Andreas Niederle from EQT Partners sees sustainability as a value driver and highlighted the importance of ESG criteria for financing projects. “Without an adequate ESG rating, there will be no more money.” And according to Dr. Jens Strüker of the University of Bayreuth, blockchain-based verification systems will be needed for this.

Harry Gatterer from Zukunftsinstitut (Future Institute) called on people to view the future as a voluntary decision and to shape it themselves. This was followed by the concluding roundtable with Kirsten Fust from Hamburger Energiewerke, Dr. Roland Merger from Renewable Energies BASF SE, Robert Pflügl from Bayernwerk Netz and Eckard Veil from Energie und Wasser Potsdam. Much more dynamism, blanket digitization, resolute debureaucratization and moral courage as well as new ways of recruiting employees were the unifying themes to emerge from the panel discussion.

“The future is a question of how I decide.”

These and other energy-related topics will be continued at the next Fichtner Talks on 26 September 2023.

October 2022