Event Agenda

weTHINK Energy Transition Conference

Time: 10:00 – 12:20 CET

10:00 – 10:05

Introduction and Welcome

Ingo Mayr-Knoch
weTHINK

10:05 – 10:35

EU Strategy towards a CO₂-Free European Energy Sector

Pierre Schellekens
Director for Energy Policy: Strategy and Coordination (EC DG ENER – European Commission)

10:35 – 11:05

Resource Road Map for the Circular Construction Industry Sector – Case Study in Germany

Martin Schneider
VDZ Germany

11:05 – 11:35

Nuclear Power and SMRs in a CO₂-Free Electricity System: Reliability, Industrial Competitiveness and European Energy Security

Dr. Martin Pache
Kerntechnik Deutschland e.V.

Panel Discussion

Navigating the Future of Energy Transition

Featuring experts from each topic area discussed throughout the conference.

13:20 – 13:30

Wrap-Up and Closing Remarks

Ingo Mayr-Knoch
weTHINK

Abstract

Pierre Schellekens

Director for Energy Policy: Strategy and Coordination at EC DG ENER – European Commission

Topic: EU Strategy towards a CO₂-Free European Energy Sector

The European Union is entering in a delivering phase of its climate and energy objectives. Building on the European Green Deal and REPowerEU, the focus is now shifting from legislative design to concrete implementation, investment, and deployment of clean technologies. The European Commission – and in particular the Directorate-General for Energy – will continue to steer this transformation towards a fully decarbonised, integrated, and resilient energy system.

The forthcoming Clean Investment Strategy together with the Grids Package, will form key pillars of this effort. These initiatives will set the framework for accelerating clean technology deployment, modernising Europe’s energy infrastructure, and securing the transition towards a CO₂-free energy sector by 2040, ensuring Europe remains both sustainable and globally competitive.

Martin Schneider

VDZ Germany

Advances in CCUS Technology and Project Applications

Full decarbonisation of the cement sector requires many different steps of CO2 mitigation, which at the end also includes carbon capture. The cement industry is a hard-to-abate industry, since process emissions from the raw materials cannot be avoided. Against this background, the cement industry is working on different projects, many of which have applied for support through the European Innovation Fund. Different technologies can be applied for carbon capture. Some of them will reach a high technical maturity once being applied in the broader scale.

The main bottleneck today is the lacking CO2 infrastructure and no easy access to storage facilities. Given the amount of CO2 to be captured and finally stored, the long-term solution for CO2 transport is a pipeline system. Such a system is still not visible to the scale needed to decarbonise cement plants all over Europe. The de-risking of first investments is still one of the biggest questions, together with the lack of CO2 specifications. The latter is of high concern, since impurities in liquid or dense phase CO2 can have an impact on pipeline performance, at the same time it requires a lot of energy to eliminate them from the CO2.

A working pipeline system and access to storage points is the absolute must for decarbonising the cement sector. This is by the way also the case for lime factories as well as municipal waste incinerators. There is an urgent need for political support, first when it comes to investment and de-risking, but also when it comes to storage: More access to onshore storage is really needed in order to come to storage solution in time and with better economics as compared to onshore storage.

Martin Pachem

Kerntechnik Deutschland e.V.

Nuclear Power and SMRs in a CO2-Free Electricity System: Reliability, Industrial Competitiveness and European Energy Security

Germany can be seen as a showcase for a difficult environment for nuclear power, which is ironically in strong need for it. Martin Pache will discuss different types of SMR designs, what value they can bring and how to implement them.

Focus Topics – 2026 Energy Transition

• EU strategy towards a CO₂-free European energy sector

• Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) for wind, PV, and hydro

• Advanced battery solutions, energy trading, and energy management systems

• CHP, biomass, and biomethane

• Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS)

• Waste heat recovery and electricity production

• Power-to-Heat and heat pumps

• CO₂-free nuclear power

• Solar, hydro, wind, and biomass – challenges and opportunities

• Financing the energy transition – private, public, and EU funding instruments