The Green Deal and the EU Industry Strategy of the new European Commission aim to make the EU greenhouse gas neutral by 2050 at the latest, requiring enormous efforts from all sectors to speed up decarbonisation. Recent studies show, that the transformation of energy and carbon intensive industries to net zero greenhouse gas emissions is a huge, but feasible challenge. It will need various leap innovations to change the production systems. This will result in considerable geographically concentrated additional demands for renewable electricity, hydrogen and fuels and/or Carbon Capture and Storage/Utilisation (CCS/CCU). The clean industrial transformation will require new efficient transport, which is not sufficiently taken into account in recent planning. In light of the economic challenges due to the global Covid-19 crisis, speeding up investments in enabling infrastructure for net-zero heavy industry, will be although the more important.
This webinar will discuss how the EU and Member States need to step up their infrastructure planning efforts to meet the ambitions of the EU Industry Strategy and the Green Deal. The following key questions will serve as a basis for this:
- Where in Europe and its industrial regions will (new) demand for electricity and hydrogen emerge until 2050, depending on different decarbonisation strategies?
- Which regions in Europe are affected most from the net-zero industrial transition and have the highest needs for adopting and expanding (existing) infrastructures?
- How much infrastructure and what kind of infrastructure solutions will be needed to cover the future demands of electricity and H2, and to transport remaining CO2 to carbon storages?
- What should be the next steps for a sustainable infrastructure on the long road towards greenhouse gas neutral industrial and energy systems within the Green Deal?
AGENDA
10:00 | Introduction by Rannveig van Iterson, Senior Associate, Industry & Innovation Programme at European Climate Foundation and Stefan Lechtenböhmer, Director for Future Energy and Industry Systems at Wuppertal Institute
10:10 | Key results and lessons learned from the study “Infrastructure Needs of an EU Industrial Transformation towards deep decarbonisation” by Christine Krüger, Project Coordinator and Frank Merten, Co-Head of Research Group “Systems and Infrastructures” at Wuppertal Institute
10:55 | Keynote speech “European strategies for climate neutral heavy industries and the related infrastructure challenges” by Ignacio Asenjo, Policy Coordinator, Networks and Regional Initiatives, DG Ener, European Commission
11:10 | Regional views on the infrastructural challenges from three different industrial cluster regions in Europe, chaired by Stefan Lechtenböhmer, Director for Future Energy and Industry Systems at Wuppertal Institute:
- Northwestern Europe (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg & North Rhine-Westphalia) by Jan Molema LLM, Director Internal Market and Energy at SG Benelux
- Southern France by Jean-Luc Reboul, CTO Primary – CO2 & Energy, ArcelorMittal Europe
- Southern Poland by Dr. Maciej Bukowski, President of WiseEuropa
11:50 | Invited Comments & Panel Discussion chaired by Oliver Sartor, Senior Associate for Industry at Agora Energiewende:
- Lisa Fischer, Policy Advisor at E3G
- Antonella Battaglini, CEO at Renewables Grid Initiative
- Micheal Bloss, MEP, European Parliament (Alliance 90/The Greens)
- Peter Handley, Head of Unit, Energy Intensive Industries and Raw Materials, DG Grow, European Commission
12:30 | Closing of event
Background of the event is the EIT Climate-KIC funded research project “Infrastructure Needs of an EU Industrial Transformation towards deep decarbonisation“, which is also part of the European Climate Foundation‘s Industrial Transformation 2050 initiative and builds on net zero pathways for heavy industry developed as part of this initiative.
Questions: niiho.spadin@europeanclimate.org | frank.merten@wupperinst.org