100 % renewable energy supply is feasible

Which technologies currently provide reasonable storage devices for renewable energy? How can these technologies contribute to build an energy supply based entirely on renewables? The First International Renewable Energy Storage Conference (IRES I) centres these questions. From October 30th to 31st, more than 200 experts from 25 countries meet at Gelsenkirchen Science Park (State of North Rhine-Westphalia, NRW), following an invitation of EUROSOLAR and the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE).

The event is organised in co-operation with the NRW State Initiative on Future Energies and with the NRW Energy Agency. It is supported by international organisations such as UNESCO, the International Solar Energy Society (ISES) and the Electricity Storage Association (ESA), as well as the German Energy Ageny (dena) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

No energy system can manage without storage devices, no matter whether electricity, heat or fuels. Especially renewable energy is often accused of being not or insufficiently storable. While there are already regions that are entirely supplied with electricity generated by wind energy, biogas, solar energy, geothermal or hydro power, storage devices nevertheless can simplify significantly the breakthrough of renewables.

"Energy storage is the strategic key element for the general application of a given energy source. By accelerating the use of energy storage devices, we unambiguously make clear to the public that renewable energies can really replace nuclear and fossil energies", says Dr Hermann Scheer, President of EUROSOLAR and General Chairman WCRE.

Professor Dirk Uwe Sauer from RWTH Aachen University, scientific chairman of the conference, points out the numerous technological solutions which storage devices already can offer to renewables: "Conference participants will be amazed about the wide range of available technologies for both, heat and electricity storage, many of them already well proven in commercial applications." Renewable electricity producers could open up new market opportunities. When Denmark is supplied by 100 % wind power at peak periods, Danish wind power producers, for example, currently would still have to dump their overcapacities at low prices on the German electricity market.

"A future-oriented energy policy has to be aligned with the three cornerstones that are security of supply, economic feasability and sustainability. These criteria are not mutually exclusive, they are compatible and they can be put into practice in the same time. Expansion of renewable energy is, beside energy efficiency, a major element of a future-oriented energy policy", says Dr Volkhard Riechmann, representative of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Riechmann highlights the importance of energy efficiency enhancements and renewable energy for the State of North Rhine-Westphalia: "Energy production and consumption cannot solely rely on fossil energy supply and their conversion into electricity, heat and kinetic energy. A system of supply, reducing dependence on energy imports, creating new employment and serving climate protection, needs innovative technologies."

"We do not have to reinvent the battery, but we should recall its genious functionality, and improve it in order to make sure that renewables win through against fossil energies in the long term", explains Professor Norbert Hüttenhölscher, Director of the NRW Energy Agency. According to Professor Hüttenhölscher, marketability and economic feasability of energy storage devices are a prerequisite of sustainable energy supply, indispensable for generating further dynamics in renewable energy markets. Prooved technologies now should be brought to the markets.

Further information: EUROSOLAR, Kaiser-Friedrich-Str. 11, 53113 Bonn/Germany, ph. +49 228 - 36 23 73, www.eurosolar.org; NRW Energy Agency (Energieagentur NRW), Kasinostr. 19-21, 42103 Wuppertal/Germany, ph. +49 202 - 24 552 - 0, www.ea-nrw.de; NRW State Initiative on Future Energies, ph. +49 211 - 8 66 42 - 0.