Green Hydrogen Forum
VDE Renewables
2022-05-13 publication

VDE Renewables session at Green Hydrogen Forum: How to obtain Sustainable Conditions from Banks and Insurances

At Intersolar 2022 VDE Renewables was invited to the Forum 'How to obtain Sustainable Conditions from Banks and Insurances' to discuss this topic together with representatives of an investor and an insurance company: Capital and risk assessment – a bond for life.

The improvement of bankability and insurability for products, processes and project with renewable energies as well as the transferability to hydrogen technologies was discussed.

Sabine Behrmann
Topics

Burkhard Holder, CEO of VDE Renewables, chaired the sessions and welcomed the guests of Munich RE as guarantor, as well as RHEINEST - The System Change Foundation as investor based on new technologies.

Patrick Hinze, Head of Green Tech Solutions (Emerging), wants to mitigate the risk from the investors by covering the performance risk of plants and products. He explained “we need trust in the project to insure and finance it”.

Rudi Hilti, CEO of RHEINEST, described how investments in capable people lead to this trust, because their business plans can change but visionary people stay focused. This is extremely valuable in the field of renewables, with lots of obstacles from a developing industry, it’s important to support those that are willing to accept the challenge.

Stefan Garche, head of hydrogen technologies of VDE Renewables, elucidated the lessons learned and success stories from other related fields such as PV and batteries. Even if all aspects of other renewable industries can’t simply be transferred to the hydrogen value chain, new approaches become visible after every milestone is reached. As a neutral technology organisation, VDE Renewables demonstrates the potential to assess the technical risk of investments or reduce it from the outset.

The panel discussion finally continued with a well-filled audience on Friday afternoon. Investments in sunny foreign countries were discussed as well as risk minimisation through technical due diligence.

Burkhard Holder thanked the panel participants for giving a realistic picture of where we are standing now: “Even the most innovative projects in the hydrogen sector can have difficulties to get financed and insured. Therefore we need a holistic approach with all stakeholders at a round table in an early stage.”

On the Podium from left to right: Moderator Burkhard Holder, Patrick Hinze, Rudolf Hilti, Stefan Garche