Intensifying our collaboration with International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), it was our pleasure to support their flagship event IIW2023
Our main focus centered around our core areas in the hard-to-abate sectors. Our factsheet series – The Basics & The Gaps – was displayed in the gallery of the main conference venue Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn and our founder, Peter Schniering, was honored to join Roland Roesch (IRENA) and Eleanor Webster (Mission Innovation) on stage to wrap up the results and key findings from the first two days.
From this discussion, three main conclusions emerged:
✅A challenging road lies ahead for hard-to-abate sectors:
????The transformation of sectors that can only be electrified indirectly (such as steel, aviation, or shipping) cannot rely on modular and easily mass-produced systems. Their future pathways will be based on affordable renewable electricity.
???? While additional technologies per sector will need to be developed in parallel, these are capital-intensive and have long development cycles.
✅Competition can be a positive force:
???? There is a multinational geostrategic race going on for future cleantech markets. Recognizing this will enable us to enhance the effectiveness of policy measures.
???? Best practices will need to be adopted to play a role in this future market.
✅To allocate resources most effectively and to reduce complexity, prioritization is essential:
????Equipping policy-makers with relevant, science-based background information per sector, while pointing out their interdependencies, is crucial.
???? As both green electricity and the molecules produced with it will remain scarce for decades to come, we need to prioritize their use smartly and avoid wasting them on regret applications.
We are currently summarizing some of the key results from sessions on Iron & Steel and Aviation & Shipping for expert media outlets, so stay tuned!
For more information on Innovation Week, please click here.
For more on long duration energy storage, cement, hydrogen, and aviation, please find our factsheets and sneak peeks here.
Thank you Francisco Boshell, Ann-Kathrin Lipponer, Ling Ling Federhen, and everyone else at IRENA for the excellent moderation. It was also great to catch up with our partners from UNIDO ITPO Germany, Vanessa Völkel and Robin Kuranel
Photo Credits: IRENA Innovation Week 2023