INTERVIEW: "Delivering PtX is a systems game"

In a feature by DaCES (Danish Center for Energy Storage), written by journalist Julie Søgaard, Hanne Klintøe sets out what it really takes to move Power-to-X from vision to reality: a path as much about grid, regulation, water and coordination as it is about technology and capital.

Aabenraa Municipality is home to the world's largest operational PtX plant - European Energy's Kassø e-methanol facility. The municipality itself is now working on the next phases of its own ambition: to become a circular hub that can attract investors from around the world, spanning a green industrial park, technical water, surplus heat, sector coupling and new derived industries. Hanne's role is not only to process applications but also to bring together the actors who each hold part of the solution. "My role is to orchestrate all of it and make it happen. A great deal of it is outreach to bring the investors to Aabenraa," she says.

A recurring barrier is that existing frameworks rarely fit the new solutions. "The rules never fit the new," Klintøe notes. "Even if they are built for the new, they are most often based on how things were done in the old days." Technical water is one example: Aabenraa works with treated wastewater rather than groundwater for large industrial processes, but because it does not fit the classic supply models, questions of pipes, land and rights can become real roadblocks.

Grid capacity remains the most fundamental constraint. "It is no secret that Energinet's pause on new grid-connection agreements is challenging when we already have investors and infrastructure projects lined up," Klintøe observes. Denmark's largest transformer station is due at Kassø in 2033, and connecting around 40 projects to it individually is complex and time-consuming. The municipality is therefore planning "not only for growth but also for local robustness", working on optimising solutions such as hybrid parks and microgrids that, in Klintøe's words, "can ultimately also help Energinet".

The overarching learning is that the barriers cannot be solved by any single actor alone; the municipality can create progress by identifying bottlenecks, bringing the actors together and securing the political mandate to work across the traditional silos. "Succeeding requires ambitious companies, innovation, coordination and a great deal of legwork. But the path is paved by political courage and fresh thinking in the old systems. That is where both the biggest potential barrier and the biggest gateway of opportunity lie," she concludes.

Read the original feature on DaCES here (in Danish)