BMW expands its exploration of solar, geothermal, and hydrogen technologies
BMW recently revealed that it will expand energy investment to reduce the need to rely on traditional fuels to operate, and earlier, it was stated that it will continue to explore solar, geothermal, and hydrogen energy technologies to build the world’s first car factory that does not rely on traditional fuels at all.
According to BMW production director Milan Nedelkjovic, BMW plans to increase the proportion of energy used by traditional fuels by adding solar cells and cooperating with the German government’s plan to deliver hydrogen to BMW’s car factory in Leipzig. Outside of Germany, there are plans to build a factory in Debrecen, Hungary, to import solar energy on a large scale, and plans to introduce geothermal heat, so that the car factory can completely get rid of traditional fuels.
In BMW’s energy use last year, natural gas accounted for 54%, and the entire German auto industry used natural gas for 37%. Recently, affected by the Ukraine-Russia war, Germany is currently under the restriction of the natural gas embargo policy originating from Russia. The impact on the auto industry is obvious, in addition to the shortage of semiconductor components, and therefore BMW plans to seek other alternative energy sources.However, compared with wind power and solar power conversion methods, geothermal energy can obviously drive more stable power conversion. It’s just that the construction cost is relatively high, so at present, most manufacturers still focus on the introduction of solar energy and wind power generation with relatively mature technologies. However, many companies still expect to invest in geothermal and hydrogen power generation to obtain higher power conversion benefits.
