The energy minister and his delegations discussed the needs for the energy transition with Kraftblock at the company’s head office

The share of renewable energy in Germany was 70% on Friday, February 26th, when Minister Habeck and his delegation as well as Saarland’s economic minister Jürgen Barke arrived at the Kraftblock headquarters. The number already says something about the development since the new government took office and the many things that have been achieved and changed. The energy transition, especially the German way, requires complex discussions and decisions. A short video of the visit can be found here.

So, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck sat down with Kraftblock’s CEO Martin Schichtel and had a closed-door roundtable discussion with representatives from the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Change and from Kraftblock on what is needed to scale up an important piece of the energy transition puzzle: energy storage that provides green heat for industrial processes and district heating while being a service to the grid.

A thermal energy storage strategy to replace fossil fuels in industries

Topics included the proposed changes to the German EEW law, harnessing renewables rather than curtailing them, a secure energy future for Europe, and ways for industry to decarbonize process heat and switch from natural gas to. Kraftblock highlighted the need for a national and supranational heat storage strategy, similar to and in line with the battery storage strategy, to ensure that the most efficient way to decarbonize process heat that also fits the grid is included in national efforts.

"This is necessary to ensure that we connect the electricity sector with its new largest customer, industry. And since most often energy in industry does not have to be electricity, we can find more efficient ways with long-term high-temperature storage to connect these sectors and get industry off the gas," explains Schichtel.

Update: As of May 2024, the ministry is working on the afore mentioned thermal energy storage strategy and Kraftblock will support this with its expertise.

After the roundtable, Minister Habeck was given a tour of Kraftblock's production facility. Here he was able to see the test storage system and the production of Kraftblock's unique storage material.