Page 12 - European Energy Innovation - autumn 2018 publication
P. 12

12  Autumn 2018 European Energy Innovation

    ELECTRIFICATION

Electrification through
partnerships are key to reach
climate goals

By Magnus Hall (right), Vice President, Eurelectric

The climate challenge is a               Europe reached 22%, while the direct     to C02 emissions. Together with fuel
            real issue that needs to     electrification rate in the UK and       producer Preem we are investigating
            be tackled now. We need      Ireland was 21%.                         a process to use hydrogen to be
            to continue to develop                                                able to replace raw oil with residual
alternative ways of transport, heating   At Vattenfall, we have shifted           products from the forest industry
and manufacturing, in order to secure    our portfolio to move towards a          like lignin, and hence contributing to
a prosperous future for our children     climate neutral energy production.       the production and use of renewable
and the generations to come. The         Our purpose is to become fossil          fuels.
energy sector needs to reduce its        free within a generation. But we
carbon footprint by finding new ways     also recognise that we have the          Large parts of the buildings in the
to produce energy. In electrification    opportunity to contribute to lowering    EU are heated through fossil energy
lies a great potential to reduce carbon  carbon dioxide emissions in other        supply like natural gas. We see that
dioxide emissions.                       sectors besides energy, like the         real estate owners are interested to
                                         transport sector and the industry        look for more sustainable solutions,
A recent study from Eurelectric          sector.                                  both from an environmental and
shows that in order to meet the                                                   financial point of view. This could,
climate goals set by the Paris           In 2015 transport stood for              for instance, be an electricity-based
Agreement a major shift to electricity   approximately 25% of the carbon          heating system like a heat pump in
in transport, buildings and industry in  dioxide emissions in the EU. There       combination with photovoltaics.
the EU is required. The conclusions      lies a substantial potential to reduce
of the study are completely in line      emissions with electric transport and    Vattenfall provides decentralised
with Vattenfall’s strategy and our       we need high ambitions set by the        and integrated energy solutions to
objective to become fossil free within   EU to trigger the necessary paradigm     real estate owners with our InHouse
a generation. The key to success,        shift to clean mobility across Europe.   concept. We are also working on
as we see it, is joint efforts through                                            storage solutions for renewable
partnerships.                            Eurelectric’s members have the           energy to be used for district heating
                                         necessary experience and expertise       amongst other things.
The Eurelectric study points out         to play their part in the development
that a full EU decarbonisation by        of charging infrastructure. Vattenfall   Industrial processes are still very
2050 would require an electrification    is currently rolling out our electrical  much relying on fossil fuels. By
share of 63% in transport and            vehicle charging network InCharge        replacing coal with hydrogen in the
buildings respectively and 50            across North-western Europe.             process of manufacturing steel, the
per cent electrification share in        Through a collaboration with             carbon dioxide emissions connected
industrial processes. In 2015, direct    municipalities, corporations and         to this process can be eliminated.
electrification in the EU ranged         housing cooperatives, we provide
between 18–32%, where the group          customised charging solutions in         The steel production alone makes
consisting of the Nordics and Baltics    order to pave the way for more           out 10% of the carbon dioxide
had the highest share.                   electric transport.                      emissions in Sweden. Through Hybrit,
                                                                                  a partnership between the steel
Key economies such as Germany            Heavy and long-distance transport        manufacturing company SSAB, the
grouped together with Central            also contributes for a large extent      mining company LKAB and Vattenfall,

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