COGENERATION CHANNEL’s Post

Transcript

Where do stationary fuel cells fit in your company���s visions for the future? As you might know, the Viessmann vision is to recreate living spaces for the generations to come, and that���s the most important thing. Nothing about the technology we at Viessman Group are developing for our customers the most important thing is, at the end, that we make a contribution to the solution of our customers who spend investments in our products and solutions in order to get the climate targets done, that���s the most important thing. So the wide portfolio Viessmann is offering today, starting from very efficient heat pumps, batteries, PV storage, PV solutions, efficient hydrogen-ready products which we are developing, but also micro-CHP fuel cells, is, let���s say, one of the pillars in a wide set-up of solutions to contribute to this target because I think it is clear, if you would define pathways towards the targets, you may have to risk the pathways will not work, and then you can fail on the pathways but to exclude solutions which can definitely contribute, and micro-CHP fuel cells will contribute to the targets, upfront, you have the risk not to achieve the targets. So our portfolio is wide, we are always focused on our customers��� wishes and also the different situations they live in, in different homes, so the heating sector is a very heterogenous system and sector, not a single solution fits all our customers, so a wide portfolio and micro-CHP in a system and especially high-efficiency fuel cells, in the future also based on green hydrogen, will definitely be playing a role here. And what do you think is the role of fuel cell micro-CHP in a carbon-neutral energy system? In a discussion where we very much focus on electrification in different sectors, not only the heating sector but also the sector of mobility, we have to be very careful. There is definitely the need also for storage of electricity in the future, so we need molecules that are counterparts and also partners of electrons in order to store energy long-term, even seasonality storages over time, otherwise, we will have a risk to keep our system in a stable way. The electricity system is only a transport system, all the gas grid for example, in the future, the hydrogen grid, is a transport system and a storage. So the complementary solutions of different products, for example, like micro-CHP fuel cells, together for example with heat pumps, this makes sense, and therefore, is an absolute requirement to achieve the target that we think in this complex system ��� it is complex, yes ��� but to ignore the complexity towards our targets, that has the risk that we really fail, and this is something which we definitely cannot allow, because to reach climate targets, climate neutrality by 2050 in Europe and 2045 even in Germany, that���s the key, and therefore a wide portfolio of solutions will contribute also. Therefore micro-CHP systems will play as a provider of electricity and heat in total as a very efficient system, even on green hydrogen in the future there is definitely an important role of that.