German Hydrogen Technology Lands in Vilnius: Inside the 29 September Baltic Conference
The German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce brings five German hydrogen suppliers, Lithuanian energy agencies and Amber Grid together in Vilnius on 29 September for a free one-day conference on early-stage green hydrogen. We walk through the full programme, the companies joining the B2B talks, and what Baltic developers should prepare before they arrive.
EVENTS
PtXBaltic
9/17/20264 min read
Every hydrogen calendar in the Baltics is crowded with ambition. What is far rarer is a room where the people who build the components, the people who write the funding rules, and the people who have to permit and finance the first assets are all present on the same day. That is what the German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce has put together for 29 September in Vilnius, and the programme is worth reading closely before you decide whether to register.
A free one-day conference at Novotel Vilnius Centre
The conference runs on Tuesday, 29 September 2026, from 09:00 to 17:00 EEST at Hotel Novotel Vilnius Centre, Gedimino ave. 16, in the BALTIJA conference room. Working language is English, participation is free, and registration is required. It is organised by the German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce (AHK) in cooperation with energiewaechter GmbH, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, and moderated by AHK project manager Eugenijus Vaitekūnas.
The framing in the title — early-stage development — is the honest part. Most Baltic hydrogen projects do not fail because the concept is wrong. They stall somewhere between a feasibility study and a final investment decision, waiting on offtake, on permitting clarity, on components with the right certification. A day built around that stage is more useful than another round of target-setting.
The morning opens with policy, then moves straight to Germany’s ramp-up
Opening remarks come from Barbara Schmidt of the German Embassy in Lithuania, Tomas Lukoševičius, Head of International Cooperation at the Lithuanian Ministry of Energy, Šarūnas Varnagiris of the Center for Hydrogen Energy Technologies at the Lithuanian Energy Institute, and Dominic Otto, Deputy CEO of AHK.
Then the substance: Tobias Stein of Projektträger Jülich | Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH on the hydrogen market ramp-up in Germany, its current status and perspectives. Jülich administers a large share of German federal energy research and deployment funding, so this is a view from inside the machinery rather than a view of it — which is the version Baltic developers rarely get.
Five German suppliers covering the unglamorous middle of the stack
The company slots are the spine of the day, and they are deliberately not all electrolyser vendors. Marcel Corneille, CEO of EMCEL GmbH, presents on hydrogen quality measurement, infrastructure and fleet transition. Julius Basler-Meier, CEO of H2Perform GmbH, speaks on turning hydrogen potential into real projects. Dr Stefan Rehm, CEO of Hypion GmbH, sets out a perspective on economically viable projects and market activation.
After lunch the supply side continues with Robert Klausmeyer, Senior Business Development Manager at SEFE Securing Energy for Europe GmbH, on securing energy now and for the future, and Teodor Georgiev, Team Lead Sales Eastern Europe at Goetze KG Armaturen, on safety valves for safe operation in the hydrogen industry.
That last one deserves a note. Valves, fittings, quality measurement, testing regimes — this is the part of the hydrogen stack nobody puts in a press release, and it is precisely the part that decides whether a Baltic pilot gets commissioned on schedule or waits eight months for a certified component. Baltic hydrogen ecosystem stakeholders tend to over-index on the stack and under-index on everything downstream of it.
Lithuania’s own case, from agency strategy to pipeline steel
The local content is not decorative. Indrė Gečaitė, Renewable Energy and Green Hydrogen Project Manager at the Lithuanian Energy Agency, presents Lithuania’s vision for green hydrogen with an explicit regional collaboration and energy independence framing. Vytautas Ruolia, CEO of Renwise JSC, gives the project development perspective on the Lithuanian hydrogen landscape — the developer’s view, which is usually where the real constraints surface.
Then Laura Gužienė, Head of Energy Transformation Development at Amber Grid, on advancing the Nordic-Baltic Hydrogen Corridor. For anyone in Latvia or Estonia sizing a production project, the corridor question is the one that determines whether you are building for a local offtaker or for a market. Having the transmission operator in the room to answer it is the reason to make the trip.
The panel that follows — Advancing Green Hydrogen in the Baltics: German Innovations and Local Opportunities — brings together Marcel Corneille, Tobias Stein, Vytautas Ruolia and Agnė Bagočiūtė, Director of the Lithuanian Energy Agency, before a Q&A closes the formal programme at 15:10.
The B2B block is where the day earns its keep
From 15:10 to 17:00 the conference converts into structured B2B talks with EMCEL, Goetze KG Armaturen, H2Perform, SEFE and Hypion. Free conferences are common in this region. Scheduled supplier access to five German companies with delivered hydrogen references is not.
Our advice is to treat those slots as the primary reason to attend and the morning as preparation for them. Arrive with a specific project, a specific bottleneck and a specific question — component lead times, certification pathways, testing protocols, offtake structuring — rather than a general interest in cooperation. Vendors answer sharp questions well and vague ones politely.
What to take from it
The German-Baltic Chamber has assembled something that reflects where the region actually is: past the strategy phase, short on bankable projects, and missing a reliable supply chain for the components and services that sit between an electrolyser and an operating asset. A day that pairs German funding-machinery insight and supplier depth with Lithuanian agency, developer and grid perspectives is a fair attempt at closing that gap.
Registration is free and required, the programme is subject to change, and enquiries go to Eugenijus Vaitekūnas at AHK. We will be watching what comes out of the B2B room more than what is said on the stage — that is usually where the next Baltic project quietly starts.