Interview with Cornelius Matthes, CEO, Dii Desert Energy

The Sustainabilist in conversation with Cornelius Matthes, CEO Dii Desert Energy, about the organisation's significant achievements towards making MENA a 'power house' for the global energy markets, and the MENA Hydrogen Alliance

How has Dii Desert Energy contributed to the region’s clean energy endeavours and transformation? What do we see as your biggest achievement in this regard?

Dii has been working in the MENA region for the last 12 years. The first few years were adventurous – many people did not believe that renewable energy could play an important role in the future energy system. We heard things like “We have so much oil and gas, why would you do renewable energy?” and sometimes people tried to make our life difficult.

Looking back, it is great to have been a pioneer for this movement, pushing the development early on, and witness the tremendous success story of solar and wind energy since then, with both solar PV and wind becoming the cheapest form of energy in the region. Dii’s work has been to bring together all relevant stakeholders to make projects bankable, create the right regulatory framework, among other activities – effectively working very much indirectly and often behind the scenes.

Desert Power 2050, published in 2012, has been an important achievement, as one of the first reports pointing already 9 years ago towards a near 100% RE energy potential in Europe, Middle East and North Africa Region. It was developed soundly with many working groups catering to the overall study, with complex modelling by Fraunhofer, and backed by a unique group of industries.

How is Dii Desert Energy contributing to the region’s fight against climate change? Are there any particular targeted initiatives you wish to single out?

Dii is a not for profit organisation, working as a think-tank. We are looking at the energy transition from a holistic point of view, i.e. from renewable generation, grid integration, electrical interconnections, storage, green molecules up energy efficiency or flexible demand. While in the first years, the focus was more on utility-scale projects, Dii is also looking at decentralised solutions and newer market segments, like net metering, which needs a boost in many countries. In this context, Dii is not promoting any specific technology – we believe that being agostic from a technology point of view is very important for credibility in the market.

Dii has published landmark reports on many of the topics relevant to the energy transition, and with numerous initiatives and events, created a platform to connect relevant stakeholders and building bridges internationally, e.g. between Europe and MENA.

As exchange with young people is at the heart of our work, we have also contributed to the Desertec University network and conducted a yearly best paper award for Master and PhD thesis in topics of relevance to our work. This has been part of the yearly Dii Desert Energy Leadership Summit, whose 10th edition was held in Berlin, in 2019.

Dii is also putting a lot of emphasis on the topic of job creation – with the first report on this topic published in 2013, and a new one localisation of the hydrogen value chain coming soon.

...many people did not believe that renewable energy could play an important role in the future energy system. We heard things like “We have so much oil and gas, why would you do renewable energy?”

Dii Desert Energy works closely with leading industry organisations to develop business opportunities and unlock emission-free projects. Which would you call as your most significant achievements so far? What is in the pipeline?

Dii, as public-private sector network of networks, indeed works closely with many leading trade associations like solar, wind, or hydrogen, as well as multilateral organisations, development banks, ministries, governmental organisations, and NGOs.

Apart from some groundbreaking studies mentioned above, the ongoing presence as a discussion platform and to generate a continuous flow of business opportunities for our partners has been an important achievement by the team to create credibility and trust in the market. Dii recently launched a project transaction platform to bring together developers and investors for projects. The group of industrial partners, IPPs and investors has grown to a unique circle of partners, of which very few are manufacturers. As an invite-only network, the organisations realising projects and more hands-on type of organisations tend to join as Associated Partners. Dii is also working on launching the Dii Green Transition Fund to invest in projects/infrastructure as well as start-ups along the emissionfree value chain.

It is important to keep on learning every day and continuously developing the organisation. I am sure there will be many more exciting things to come during this decade of disruption when emission-free technologies are coming into the scale-up phase and will significantly positively change the energy system.

Can you tell us about the MENA Hydrogen Alliance, and how it will contribute to the development of the industry in the MENA region?

The idea for the MENA Hydrogen Alliance was born at the 10th Dii Desert Energy Leadership Summit in Berlin. When our colleague Frank Wouters presented the North Africa Europe Hydrogen Manifesto, the overwhelming response brought him to the conviction to elevate this important topic to more than just a working group. While Dii has been working on the topic of green molecules since 2016, the moment to launch the MENA Hydrogen Alliance came only in January 2020, with a first stakeholder consultation at WFES, and an official launch at Intersolar ME in March 2020, just before the pandemic started. Since then, the Alliance managed to attract many prominent players along the green molecules value chain, and could establish itself as a platform for discussion, developing and pushing project ideas, educating, in particular, public sector stakeholders on the technical and economic implications of green molecule projects. We have published different reports, which can be downloaded from the Dii website, and built close cooperations e.g. with the EU Commission, Germany's Ministries, and with our Associated Partner developing the Asian Renewable Energy Hub – even relations as far as in Australia.

Building on the relations and trust of Dii Desert Energy in the market for many years, the Alliance has quickly established itself as the premier platform on the rather new topic of green molecules in the region, but also built a series of international partnerships. The Alliance is working on several crucial topics to create a market for green molecules, ranging from certification of the green origin, to technical standards, mechanisms to bridge the gap between green and grey hydrogen to accelerate the development of hydrogen economies, like CfDs. Also, our CTO Fadi Malouf has developed the LCoH and LCoAmmonia models, including transport options, which are very helpful to calculate price ranges and sensitivities for different regions. In summary, the Alliance is working on all relevant things to accelerate the creation of green molecule projects, and eventually, hydrogen economies in the region.