Bandung College of Textile Technology (STTT), took part in developing an applied research project entitled Enatex. Enatex is one of three collaboration projects between Indonesia and Germany through the Client II Scheme or international partnership for sustainable innovation. The scheme is sponsored by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) or the German Ministry of Education and Research. The project is to support the future growth of the Indonesian textile industry, through technological approaches and sustainable innovative processes, especially in the textile industry.

Mohammad Widodo, a representative from STTT Bandung and the person in charge of the 2023 EnaTex Midterm Conference, said that in this international collaboration there are several consortium institutions from various institutions.

"The focus of the collaboration is research on sustainability and energy efficiency. Earlier it was discussed that there is fuel in the form of coal which is still used by industry," said Widodo, Friday (27/10/2023).

"We are now moving to look at the possibility of using more environmentally friendly fuels, such as using gas, or solar power," he said.

In this activity, he said, there were two large textile industries that were invited to serve as prototypes for this project.

"Our focus is on renewable energy and large-scale industries have been selected. To represent Indonesian textiles, there are two industries that have been invited," he said.

Head of the Enatex Project from IZES gGmbH Germany, Bernhard Wern, said that changing habits from less environmentally friendly energy to more environmentally friendly energy is not easy.

"It will take at least 10 years to be able to change fuel from coal to one that is more environmentally friendly," said Benhard.

Benhard gave the example that in Germany there is a steel industry that has switched from using coal to other energy.

This change, he said, would take up to 15 years.

DLR Project Program Administrator Federal Ministry of Education and research, Germany Roland Keil added, this cooperation model will later take the form of a partnership.

"So, instead of giving grants, we want there to be some kind of partnership both in financing and expertise and the project is built together," said Roland.

It is hoped that from this collaboration there will be a prototype that can provide a solution so that it can be adapted by other, wider industries.

"Later economic power will be built for both parties, Indonesia can send products to the European market, they can also enter our market," said Roland.