“It’s very good to be back in Berlin,” says Wopke Hoekstra during his visit to the Urban Tech Republic | Berlin TXL last Friday. “What you are doing here is the future. I look forward to hearing about your experiences and what Europe can learn to provide the best possible support.” The overarching goal is clear: “We want to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent. “Fossil energies must finally become history,” said Hoekstra. “We work on that here every day,” confirmed Nora Oberlaender.
Our co-founder and advisory board member, Alexander Voigt presented the developments in HH2E’s large hydrogen projects in Lubmin and Tierbach. Christian Friebe explained how our innovative electrolyser will make green hydrogen significantly cheaper. Our first EU-funded field test in Alkmaar as part of the REFORMERS project also shows how our technology creates added value in a decentralised manner.
After a tour of the .GUT Am Flughafen 1 community, the EU Commissioner could directly experience our prototype and discuss it with our CTO, Andrew Zwinkels.
“Success depends on public and private collaboration.” This is the common conclusion after the exchange. We can only confirm this as a privately financed start-up with many tailwinds from public funding from BMBZ, BMWK and the EU. It also shows that, despite all the debates, the EU Commission is firmly behind the CO2 reduction targets. At the national level, politicians are now faced with translating the implementation of the RED3 targets to ramp up hydrogen into practice. Planning security is created primarily due to the stringent and binding EU policy. Particularly relevant for EU Commissioner Hökstra was Europe’s economic resilience and solid domestic industry in producing electrolysers and other climate protection technologies and infrastructure.
As a farewell, Hoekstra gave the .GUT Am Flughafen 1 community the following message: “There is only one group of people who are not enthusiastic about Germany: The Germans. I would encourage you to be proud of yourself!”
Thank you very much for the time you took for us and the Urban Tech Republic!