Saxony’s Economics Minister Martin Dulig is looking for cooperation partners in Great Britain for the energy transition. The Saxons are not alone in this.
Martin Dulig actually wanted to travel to the island immediately after the British left the European Union to promote Saxony as a business location. Because in 2018, many believed that companies and banks would now flock to the mainland in the bosom of the EU to continue enjoying the benefits of the European single market. But then came the Covid 19 pandemic and the trip had to be postponed several times.
Now the Saxon Minister of Economic Affairs is standing in Birmingham in a fancy hotel bar on the 25th floor, asking himself and the guests at the Saxon reception, “Is now the right time to come? The pandemic is not over yet and now the terrible war in Ukraine is raging?” Dulig “Yes” is his answer. He says the themes of the trip are still the same as two years ago, but the perspective has changed. Now the Saxons are no longer primarily concerned with promoting the Free State as a business location, but with finding cooperation partners for the challenges of the future.
For the Economics Minister, these are above all the energy turnaround and the conversion to a climate-neutral economy – a process that has once again been massively accelerated by the Ukraine war. And digitization, where the pandemic has exposed Germany’s shortcomings. “How can we transform the energy supply to meet climate protection targets, but without jeopardizing energy security and ensuring that energy remains affordable for all, so that there is no social dislocation?” Dulig often asks this question, but also frequently gets it from his interlocutors.
During the five-day delegation trip, the focus is clearly on energy, especially hydrogen technologies. In its hydrogen strategy, Saxony has set itself the goal of establishing a hydrogen economy along the entire value chain by 2030. And there’s no getting around the topic in the UK either. “Every day when you open the newspaper, you read something about companies that want to produce or use hydrogen. It’s a crazy hype,” they say.
After all, the UK has set itself the goal of becoming climate-neutral by 2050. However, like Germany, the country is currently struggling with galloping energy prices. Inflation is over seven percent and is forecast to rise to over ten percent by the end of the year. In April, energy prices were increased by 50 percent, and in October there is to be a further increase of 30 percent. Many Britons have stopped heating their homes. Poorer households are faced with the question of whether to heat or eat. They can’t afford both, according to interviewees.
That’s why many energy parks are currently being set up on the island to experiment with solutions. Dulig is impressed by the integrative approach in Birmingham. The industrial city in the Midlands wants to become the energy capital of Great Britain. The city council, university and numerous companies have come together to show how the chicken-and-egg problem of the energy transition can be solved. Does the supply of climate-friendly heating and drive systems have to be created first, or does consumer demand have to be awakened first? “Both have to be done at the same time,” says David Boardman of the University of Birmingham and deputy director of the Birmingham Energy Institute.
He compares it to the London 2012 Olympics. “Everything had to be built at the same time, finished at one point in time, and we didn’t have the skilled labor and funding to do it. Now it’s happening again,” Boardman said. By 2050, 23 million homes in the United Kingdom will need to be decarbonized, meaning equipped with carbon-neutral heating systems and swapping the internal combustion vehicle on their doorstep for an electric car or public transport annual pass, in order for the country to meet its climate change targets.
On the factory site of Webster & Horsefall, a three-century-old manufacturer of cable and wire rope, the Tyseley Energy Park is being built to provide zero-carbon solutions in electricity, transport, heat, waste and recycling for Birmingham. constructed. The old stable buildings, which once housed the horses that pulled the coal wagons, are now home to startups in an incubator looking to develop green technologies and new business models. Last year, the site saw the opening of the UK’s first free-access, low-carbon, multi-fuel filling station there.
The facility, which operates without staff, offers hydrogen, compressed natural gas, biodiesel and electric vehicle charging options around the clock. Ten million British pounds has been spent on the facility, with much of it funded by Boris Johnson’s government in London. Since April, 20 hydrogen double-decker buses purchased by the city council have been refueled there. Another 124 are to follow. It is not to stop there.
David Boardman presents plans for a recycling plant for rare earths. A vertical farming project is also planned to prove that trees can be planted without soil. The representatives of Leipzig’s business development and investment agency listen with interest. The Saxon twin city of Birmingham has similar plans with its “Energy City”.
Hydrogen also plays an important role for the railroads. In the railroad competence center “Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Innovation” the only memorandum of understanding of this trip on intensified cooperation between the Faculty of Transport Sciences “Friedrich List” of the TU Dresden and the University of Birmingham was signed.
Joint research projects and the exchange of students and researchers are planned. Together, they also want to participate in European research programs. “We have to make the railroads fit for the future and modern. This calls for all transnational ideas and these must be placed on a foundation in which there is a commitment to cooperation,” says Professor Arndt Stephan of the TU Dresden, explaining the declaration of intent.
The last stop on the trip is Edinburgh. The Scots want to become climate-neutral even five years earlier than the British as a whole, as early as 2045. In contrast to the central government in Westminster, the Scottish government does not rely on nuclear energy, but wants to promote the consistent expansion of renewable energies. By 2030, 20 gigawatt capacities of green hydrogen are to be built, with the green electricity coming from offshore wind farms off the coast.
Scotland wants to become an exporter of green hydrogen and wind energy. “There are an incredible number of opportunities for cooperation. In concrete terms, these will be explored following the trip,” Martin Dulig explained after a meeting with Kate Forbes, Minister for Economic Affairs and Finance. In the conversation, however, the 36-year-old also made it clear: “We are very interested in technical cooperation and expertise, but we also have our own research results and technologies to offer.”
Renewable energy from Scottish sources is in hot demand. Delegations from Lower Saxony and Thuringia were there before the Saxons, and a group from Hesse is coming next month. “German politicians just want to talk to me about hydrogen,” says Angus Robertson, minister for foreign affairs. In the race, the Saxons may have a trump card they didn’t even know about until last evening. At the Saxony reception, the Scottish National Party politician reveals why he immediately agreed to come to the rather small event despite deadline pressures – because his grandmother is from near Zittau. “We know they want hydrogen and we are happy to help,” Robertson says in perfect German.
