The hydrogen ramp-up is picking up speed in Saarland, with implications for both the training and the skilled labour markets. To give Saarland vocational school students an opportunity to grapple with hydrogen technology at an early stage and gain practical experience, a total of 102 hydrogen kits have been created for 18 vocational schools in Saarland. Each of the schools is also receiving a model fuel cell vehicle.
On Friday 14 November, Minister of Economic Affairs Jürgen Barke – together with Minister of Education Christine Streichert-Clivot and Dr. Bettina Hübschen, CEO of Saarländische Wasserstoffagentur GmbH – handed over the first ten hydrogen kits and a model fuel cell vehicle to the TGBBZ 1 vocational training centre in Saarbrücken.
Minister of Economic Affairs Jürgen Barke: ‘The ramping up of the hydrogen economy brings huge potential for our energy and industry location. This requires well-trained specialists. With these educational kits, we are seeking to integrate core hydrogen technology skills into the dual training provided by vocational schools. To consolidate Saarland as a leading location for hydrogen, we need to start investing in our skilled young specialists now. These educational hydrogen kits are making a major contribution to this.’
Minister of Education Christine Streichert-Clivot: ‘The hydrogen kits enable students to experience from up close how hydrogen can be generated, stored and used. They make complex physico-chemical processes visible and comprehensible – and they show how exciting technology, research and sustainability can be if you are allowed to explore it and try it out for yourself. Our transformation into a climate-neutral, technologically innovative industry is also changing professional education. These hydrogen kits allow us to incorporate future technologies directly into teaching and enable young people to help shape this transformation – as well-trained specialists and responsible designers of our shared future.’
Dr. Bettina Hübschen, CEO of Saarländische Wasserstoffagentur GmbH: ‘The Saarland Hydrogen Agency helps citizens and companies to identify and implement the positive effects of sustainable hydrogen technologies. The “Saarland Hydrogen Strategy 2025-2032” explicitly cited boosting children and young people’s knowledge of hydrogen technologies as an objective. I am delighted that we are able to take a step closer to this goal by providing educational hydrogen kits and model fuel cell vehicles.’
Wolfgang Klein, principal of TGBBZ 1 Saarbrücken: ‘The process of industry transformation is continuing and schools 4.0 need to train specialists for the future. Hydrogen plays a vital role in this, as a regenerative energy source. Our role as a vocational school is to support the projects conducted by our dual partners (such as manufacturing green steel). We want to give students a theoretical and practical understanding, so that they can help design and shape transformation processes and sustainability concepts. These hydrogen kits in schools will serve as an ideal complement to existing regenerative energy transformation processes. They demonstrate green energy production processes in a practical manner and can be put to illustrative use in the example of a fuel cell vehicle.’
Both the educational hydrogen kits and the model vehicles demonstrate how solar energy can be used to generate hydrogen and how this can then be converted back into electricity. The practical and experimental use of materials for teaching or as part of professional orientation should develop students’ hydrogen technology skills, as well as inspiring their interest in careers in this future-oriented industry.
The Saarland Hydrogen Agency is supplying the kits and model vehicles. The Ministry of Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitalisation and Energy is providing around 72,000 euros of state funds to cover the materials.
