At the event, Minister of Energy Csaba Lantos praised the achievements of the Szeged research agglomeration, the University of Szeged, the ELI ALPS laser centre, the Szeged Biological Research Institute and the SZTE Science Park. The Minister said that in mitigating the effects of global warming, the developed world cannot be expected to force developing countries to self-limit fossil energy production after 200 years of pollution. Therefore, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we need scientific solutions, new research that moves out of the lab and into industrial testing.
László Bódis, Deputy State Secretary of KIM, Director General of NIÜ, also attended the ceremony and gave a presentation. "This innovation test station will implement the Neumann János Programme, of which the green transition is one of the main focus areas, practically in its entirety. On the one hand, the operation of the facility generates numerous collaborations between the university, the research site and Hungarian and foreign industrial companies, and on the other hand, it has a strong impact, since it aims to strengthen the green transition, which is also economically profitable and can generate revenue," he said in his presentation.
The main objective of the test station is to test proven, laboratory-scale, environmentally friendly energy storage and conversion technologies in a semi-commercial environment. The facility will also use locally generated renewable electricity to produce 'green' hydrogen through electrolysis of water, which will be used as fuel and feedstock for further energy conversion processes. In the next step, carbon monoxide and hydrogen produced by electrolysis (or catalytic conversion) of carbon dioxide are used to produce liquid synthetic fuels (e-fuels such as raw gasoline or kerosene).
