The biggest obstacle to the energy transition is up here.
We need a whole new way of thinking.
Can the Netherlands run entirely on green energy?
Looking at the energy transition there are three major issues.
Policy, technology, behaviour.
We care a lot about how other people see us.
This is acceptable, but that isn't.
That aspect is underestimated.
Everyone's focused on the technology and policies...
but the social norms, what we consider acceptable, are often decisive.
So the transition is a fundamental change in our way of thinking...
in how we do things and how we organise things.
That takes time and money and can be met with a lot of resistance...
because it's a radical change.
If we look at what really has to change, we see a few major issues.
The industry runs mainly on natural gas and oil.
We need to replace those in the next 20 years.
By far the largest producers of CO2 emissions at North Sea Port...
are industrial companies, not transport companies.
Mainly steel and energy companies.
North Sea Port produces about 22 million tonnes of CO2 per year...
as much as the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp.
So, we face a big challenge, because that's 10% of all emissions in the Benelux region.
I think there are three challenges.
First of all, heavy industry needs a lot of money.
They need to invest a great deal in the production processes.
Secondly, you can't achieve the energy transition without new infrastructure.
New pipelines, connective infrastructure, terminals for CO2 and so on.
And the third challenge is a stable government.
European, Dutch and Belgian governments need to create a framework...
that offers the industry clarity for a number of years.
Because uncertainty scares off investment.
I think the key challenges are...
that we need to significantly scale up the supply side...
starting all of it with renewable power at real scale.
On the demand side, we must ensure that we make it attractive...
to make the conversion on the demand side.
And then we need to create integrated solutions...
where grid, distribution and storage...
are all thought into the same integrated energy system.
The complete energy infrastructure, from production, over transport...
to consumption and storage... You can throw out that whole chain.
This is the biggest challenge in 150 years.
The Netherlands has never faced such a challenge.
The energy transition has been going on for 30 years...
and we tend to move gradually, until there's a crisis...
and then suddenly people realise things have to change.
For instance, the earthquakes in Groningen...
did more for our energy transition than all climate reports put together.
We had an earthquake crisis in Groningen due to gas extraction...
so that spurred us on to get off natural gas more quickly.
We made plans with a clear path and end goal, so everyone can fulfil their role.
That's very important in the energy transition.
Everybody, whether at home or at work, in mobility or industry...
should know what they can do today.
We can't wait for a solution that fits every situation.
You need to ask yourself: What can I do?
The energy transition is very complex. There isn't just one issue and one solution.
We're going from fossil to renewable, from centralised to decentralised.
And I think we'll see three out of five energy companies disappear.
It won't be the biggest or smartest who survive...
but the most agile and resilient.
Ørsted has proven itself to be agile and resilient.
Almost 60% of all energy companies aren't.
I'll say, in all humility, that Ørsted has...
through our transformation over well over a decade...
We have now built and completed 28 utility-scale projects around the world.
And therefore... both leveraging the deep experience we have...
both from what it takes to actually build a well-functioning wind farm...
but also to ensure that we consistently drive out costs...
is something that we, of course, leverage a little bit better...
every time we build a project.
But it's also something we've chosen deliberately...
to share with the entire industry.
Because we need all hands on deck.
And we are not only the biggest, but also clearly the most experienced...
developer in offshore wind globally.
And it's our obligation to share all of those learnings...
so we can help others with their transformation.
Solar and wind energy are the low-hanging fruit.
But building a completely new energy system...
with a whole different infrastructure.
The crux is going to be energy storage, because sun and wind are very variable.
So you need to deliver sufficient energy...
and be able to store it at times when you can't deliver as much.
Every energy company is struggling with that...
but that's the big challenge we face.
We need system integration in the power grid...
because power needs to be consumed when it's produced.
And with the right storage solution, including hydrogen-based solutions...
we can match demand and supply a lot better.
Good morning. -Good morning.
Welcome. -Thank you.
What are we going to see today?
We’re going to have a look at a new technology to store electrical energy.
Elestor has developed an innovative battery to store electrical energy...
from, for example, wind and solar farms.
The technology is based on the flow battery principle.
That makes it possible to bridge long periods...
in which very little electricity is produced.
So you can decide how many megawatt hours the battery should deliver.
The success of this type of battery depends on the storage costs per megawatt hour.
With this technology, it's extremely low.
Hydrogen and bromine are abundant all over the world...
which makes them extremely cheap.
We're testing how the battery ages, because no battery lasts forever.
And do you have insights yet about the battery life?
Yes, the battery life is about 15 to 20 years.
When it dies, you don't need to replace the whole battery, only this small part.
You’re giving a second life to the battery by replacing this part.
The part you don't replace are the chemicals...
the active materials that are stored in large tanks.
We use hydrogen and bromine, but we don't use it up.
That's what's great about this technology: You don't lose anything...
unlike lithium batteries.
The moonshot we're aiming for...
is that this type of battery will one day replace fossil power stations.
Those batteries will become bidirectional power stations.
We need to develop a plan, a vision.
We need to develop a good strategy to execute it.
And we need to put it into practice.
Don't have endless consultations. Dare to take radical decisions.
And we can learn from the past.
In the past, in places where the energy was produced...
people didn’t benefit from it. They often suffered from it.
But now we can build solar farms and wind farms, nature-inclusive.
The surrounding region directly benefits.
It's a unique situation...
that allows us to look at how energy can create wealth for all.
We will have greater control over our energy system.
We are future-proofing our workforce, and if we do it in an intelligent way...
where we also really proactively take care of nature...
so that we don't make that green transformation at the expense of...
but supporting nature and the societies we’re a part of...
I think it's essentially to the benefit of everybody.
The hard-to-abate sectors are to an increasing extent not only willing...
but they're also painfully aware that they must make that transformation.
Looking at companies' priorities five years ago...
sustainability and climate change were still seen as far-off issues...
or they were seen as image projects.
Today, those companies see energy and climate change as their core business.
We're convinced we can get our port off gas and coal by 2050...
and be climate-neutral by then.
There will be intermediary steps, towards 2030, towards 2040...
but the ultimate goal is: no more fossil fuel in our port.
We are going now to see one of the world's first renewables-based electrolysers...
where we are making renewable hydrogen. We're going to a project, H2RES.
It's close to completion.
So we're looking at something which will soon produce hydrogen.
Right now we are learning how to handle the intermittency or the variability...
of the power production from the wind turbines...
in a way where we manage the stability of the system...
and where we use as much of the power as possible.
And learning that on a small scale...
to scale very fast to something a lot bigger, even this decade...
is something that we think is exactly the right way of working...
by sort of acting our way into a new way of thinking.
We're standing in front of a container and it is essentially a very modular system...
so scaling up is in principle easy...
but we have to manage individual modules first, which is what we're doing here.
Mads, is it realistic to get rid of fossil fuel dependency in the near future?
Yes, yes, it is possible to get rid of fossil fuels in the near future.
We and the entire world have gotten used to thinking of fossil fuels...
as an abundant and storable resource that we can use whenever we want to.
We left it to a few big companies...
to ensure that we always have it.
And it's with a consumption mindset.
What we are in the midst of...
and what needs to be accelerated is almost sort of a... it's a paradigm shift.
Where we think about a much more integrated system...
in ways that tie together supply side, demand side...
and then integrated storage and distribution solutions...
that are just fundamentally different than a fossil fuel economy.
This may sound complex, but as a matter of fact...
as soon as your mind starts travelling down that road...
you know what is right to do and what is no longer right to do.
Technically speaking everything is possible, but how do you organise it?
And how is our mental resilience? People have to be open to it.
So the most important thing is probably to believe in it and get behind it.
We have to see it as an opportunity, as a challenge.
And it's great fun to do.