E-world 2019: How can cities contribute to energy transition?

Counting over 750 exhibitors, E-world energy & water, which is held in Essen, Germany, is considered by many companies to be the most important power convention in Europe. Businesses from Australia, China, South Africa and the USA are represented in addition to companies from 22 European countries.

The range of issues addressed is as multifaceted as the sector itself: generation and transportation, management and trading, consumption and efficiency along with other services and mobility.

This year’s focus rests on ‘Smart City and Climate Solutions’. The question begging to be answered is, ‘Which solutions can conurbations come up with in order to achieve the climate goals?’

Green solutions increasingly important

“The first thing that often comes to one’s mind is transportation: e-mobility, public transport and low-emissions vehicles,” says Klaus Gentner, Customer Advisor at RWE Supply & Trading. “But it’s also about making more efficient use of existing infrastructure: ‘How can consumers can make their needs flexible in order to avoid peak loads and take advantage of excess supply?’ Another question is, ‘How can municipal utilities optimise the management of their combined heat and power stations?’”

Gentner declares that, in times of occasionally negative electricity prices as well as rising grid fees and commodity and carbon prices, these questions become more and more relevant even independent of urbanity: “Power producers, including industrial enterprises that generate electricity and process heat in their own power plants, are adopting more flexible setups so they can react better to fluctuations in electricity prices.”

He adds that service products are equally important to this end as are software solutions and technological innovation – on both a large scale, i.e. in modern electricity and heat generation plants and battery storage facilities, and on a small scale, e.g. in measurement and control technology.

Calibrating the compass

Besides concrete solutions to known challenges, first and foremost, Gentner will be looking for the pulse of the sector at E-world energy & water: “For us, the trade show presents an excellent opportunity to engage in dialogue with customers and partners, collect ideas and feedback, and discover what’s moving the sector.”

According to Gentner, RWE Supply & Trading has its sights set squarely on the trend towards renewable energy and sustainability. His impression so far is that “ the closer our customers are to consumers, the more important this topic tends to be to them.”