Ceremonial opening of the new Swiss Museum of Transport’s ’House of Energy’. Photo: Swiss Museum of TransportEnergy is the basis of our mobility. Therefore, the Swiss Museum of Transport is dedicating its latest exhibition to the topic of energy and opened the purpose-built "House of Energy" on 3 April. The "Experience Energy!" exhibition was created in close exchange with research and industry and is constantly being expanded and updated. Empa and other institutions of the ETH Domain are involved.
Every Swiss visits the Museum of Transport in Lucerne at least once in a lifetime. In addition, a large number of tourists from all over the world visit the museum on Lake Lucerne every day, making it the most visited museum in Switzerland. While the Powerfuel exhibition, co-designed by Empa, has already been showing how today’s energy system and the various forms of mobility are interrelated since March 2021, a new exhibition building is now dedicated to the topic of energy - and thus the basis of our mobility. The "House of Energy" and the new exhibition "Experience Energy!" were officially opened by Martin Bütikofer, Director of the Swiss Museum of Transport, on 3 April 2023, in the presence of National Council President Martin Candinas, energy pioneer and exhibition patron Bertrand Piccard, and numerous other guests from politics, science, and business. The exhibition sees itself as a platform for dialog with visitors and aims to promote an ongoing exchange between research and society. Brigitte Buchmann, Member of Empa’s Directorate, in conversation with Michael Hengartner, President of the ETH Board (connected via video), Andrea Weber-Hansen, Vice Director HSLU, and Luca Castiglioni from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE). Photo: Empa Brigitte Buchmann, Member of Empa’s Directorate and Head of the Department of Energy, Mobility and Environment, supported the exhibition as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board and emphasized the importance of such a dialog: "The climate targets and the transformation of the energy system affect us all. It is all the more crucial to make the connections understandable and to show individual options for action." As part of the Joint Initiative "Energy Science for Tomorrow" funded by the ETH Board, ETH Zurich, EPFL, Empa and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) will therefore cooperate with the Swiss Museum of Transport to continuously develop the exhibition in the "House of Energy" over the coming years. The research expertise of the institutions of the ETH Domain will flow into interactive exhibits and joint activities, thereby enabling a cross-generational dialog on the Energy Strategy 2050.
From 13 to 21 May, the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne will host the second Powerfuel Week , supported by Empa. The event is a conference, trade fair and exhibition all at once and is dedicated to hydrogen and synfuel technologies. Empa researcher Christian Bach, head of the Automotive Powertrain Technologies lab, will be speaking at the Powerfuel Conference on 16 May about the current state of research into synthetic fuels.
