Wolfgang Marzin0:11
This will be a major theme accompanying the whole world, and it gained additional momentum two years ago after Fukushima and its terrible consequences, because our government, the German federal government, flipped the switch and initiated the energy transition. By now it's not just decreed but has arrived in everyone's minds. That's why Light + Building, as the world's largest trade fair for light and building technology, has a special presence: 40% of energy flows into buildings. The more we can reduce that, the greater the effects will be. So you could say Light + Building bears 40% of the responsibility—or the industry does—and also the opportunity to realize these things. They are well positioned, extremely fine-tuned. The lighting industry has already introduced standards years ago to reduce energy consumption with LED and OLED, revolutions in lighting technology, and then applying those standards almost worldwide—these are enormous quantum leaps. And in building technology as well, with a mix of renewable energy sources, decentralized energy supply is on everyone's lips, so that energy doesn't have to travel long distances and can be fed into smart grids. A green power plant is also a trend: buildings become power plants, and in the smart grid the energy is buffered or distributed accordingly. I think the industry is making infinite progress, and above all it has the best platform for it. Here, the trades, processors, engineers, and architects all work together to realize this topic as quickly as possible. The highlight is that we have this industry here in Germany, in Europe, in Frankfurt: light and innovative building technology. I can't pick out a single highlight because 2,350 exhibitors from 50 countries represent the global offering, and together they attract between 180,000 and 200,000 visitors from all over the world. The fact that we see energy efficiency—the mega-topic—blessed with these areas, smart grids, buildings themselves as power plants—that's fantastic. There is no single highlight; the highlight is that we all have one goal: to increase energy efficiency significantly, and buildings can contribute 40% to that. That is a challenge that everyone who comes together at this marketplace, namely Light + Building, is taking on. It is certainly a vision, but you start with a vision, and there are already huge steps. If you consider that today—and we have special shows that demonstrate this—wind, hydropower, heat pumps, properly controlled combined heat and power, photovoltaics, solar energy: the supply of renewable energy is constantly growing and opening up countless new switches and doors. Everyone is working toward the same vision, and by the way, they also want to make money—that's not unimportant—but the vision of actually reducing energy consumption drives everyone. And it can definitely work; it's certainly not as difficult as imagining in 1960 that we would fly to the moon, and eventually it did happen. I think when everyone together has a vision, it's better than if only one or two have a vision. An entire industry, an entire community has a vision, and that's why it will work. It will take time, there will be setbacks, and not everyone—including consumers—will understand it yet: what's in it for them? And advising them well so they can decide when and how to make energy-saving investments—that is the art. Everyone will continue to work on that: the industry, of course, the trades, of course, and also the legislators or politicians. And all of this will continue to be presented every two years at the world's largest energy fair, Light + Building, the world's largest fair for lighting and building technology.
