From 7th to 9th of April, the German-Paraguayen industrial fair “ExpoAlemania 2011 – energy, technology and sustainability” took place in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. It was conjointly organized by the “Camara Paraguayo-Alemana“ (Paraguayan-German chamber), the German chamber of foreign trade and the German embassy.
The main topic dealt with the discussion about how to guarantee the power supply with renewable energies in rather remote areas. Being one of The meeco Group’s core competences the group and its fully developed off-grid solutions provided the necessary knowledge and expertise. Furthermore Dr. Oliver Jann who represented the group in South America contributed to the fair by giving a magnificent speech about the future of global power supply.
In his introduction Dr. Jann quoted the scientist Ludwig Boelkow: „Nuclear power doesn´t work in the 21. Century. Electricity will come from solar cells”. During his interesting speech he was able to clearly demonstrate the gap between humanity’s hope for never ending energy sources and the reality of fast fading oil and coal supplies. Furthermore Dr. Jann proofed that in the future renewable energy sources will have to fill even more than expected.
Dr. Jann also pointed out the paradox Paraguayan circumstances. Using nearly 100 % of the energy provided by renewable sources and causing the remote areas to generate their electricity through fossil fuels the electrified areas leave the remote areas to be dependent on global oil markets.
He clearly explained how on the one hand the permanently increasing demand for oil and coal and their decreasing production on the other hand will lead to rising prices for fossil fuels and distributive conflicts. Those two effects threaten the global growth of wealth and peace. To conquer these problems energetic independence will be essential and can only be guaranteed by the wide spread use of renewable energy sources.
Furthermore, he supported his argument with the fact that prices for solar cells permanently decrease which is caused by the rapid progress of all the involved technologies. “Even now the use of solar cells to generate electricity is by far cheaper and more efficient on the long run than to use diesel generators”, he explains. He beliefs that his findings are proof for an imminent energetic revolution in the near future.
