Hager – Part of the solution or part of the problem?
Andreas Piepenbrink shares his thoughts with us.
Andreas Piepenbrink is the cofounder of the electricity storage brand E3/DC and heads Hager Group’s Energy Management business unit called Hager Energy.
Acting sustainably is a matter for us all. Indeed, the world’s biggest challenges are rarely solved by one person or linear solutions.
A firm believer in the necessity and the capacity to have a carbon neutral home, Andreas Piepenbrink has found his niche: single family energy storage systems to allow households to create just the right amount of energy they need.
“It’s so important to be able to contribute to reducing the effects of greenhouse gas, I play my part and contribute where I can. Using the principles of the circular economy and renewables is so much more responsible.”
He is convinced that the business model he set up more than ten years ago continues to go in the right direction.
“The storage system is an honest example of what we can do, given how complicated the situation is. I don’t claim to be a Greta Thunberg, however, doing the right thing matters to me. And we do have the technology to get the single family home to a CO₂ consumption of nearly zero.”
Ever conscious of the complexity of finding alternative energy sources to burning fossil fuels and being a critical thinker, Andreas admits that he has often asked himself if he is part of the solution for CO₂ reduction, or if he is part of the problem? But anyone who has the system installed can testify that it works and allows home owners to be in line with their values and ambitions to reduce their carbon footprint. He himself owns a home that is carbon neutral.
As an entrepreneur, Andreas says that looking back now he couldn’t have gone the distance alone, even though “when you start out you have a vision, you want to do the impossible, and you are alone to make it work.”
Throughout his 10-year E3/DC adventure, he has sought the help of specialists and employed who he refers to as the “best of the best with a proven track record”. Particularly proud of the teams he has developed and the brand he has set up:
“I am proud of having built up a strong brand together with a strong buy-in of private customers thanks to our proven track record of CO₂ balance in our technology.
If you’d like to know to what he attributes his success, read more here.
Source
Hager Group
EMR Analysis
More information on Hager: See the full profile on EMR Executive Services
More information on Daniel Hager (CEO, Hager Group): See the full profile on EMR Executive Services
More information on Dr. Andreas Piepenbrink (Executive Vice President Energy Management Development, Hager Group): See the full profile on EMR Executive Services
More information on the Hager Sustainability Strategy: See the full profile on EMR Executive Services + https://hagergroup.com/en/sustainability
More information on E3/DC: https://www.e3dc.com/en/about-us/?noredirect=en_US#Quality
The company name E3/DC is derived from an acronym of the German words, “einsparend, erneuerbar, effektiv” (saving, renewable, effective), hence E3, and DC or direct current. Since the company was founded, over 40,000 home power stations and Quattroporte systems are up and running at our customers’ premises, and are making a contribution towards the environmentally-friendly and cost-saving provision of energy. In our locations in Osnabrück, Wetter an der Ruhr and Göttingen, we have a workforce of more than 170 employees, who strive to make the vision of independent houses and enterprises, and also solar electric mobility a reality. By storing and using solar energy, our independence from fossil fuel energy increases. Our energy supply can become up to 100 % autonomous. Every year, we produce over 16,000 home power stations, which are manufactured exclusively in Germany, and are subject to the strictest quality controls, in accordance with the ISO 9001 standard.
EMR Additional Notes:
- Global Warming: Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth’s climate system observed since the pre-industrial period (between 1850 and 1900) due to human activities, primarily fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere.
- Global Warming potential (GWP):
- The heat absorbed by any greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, as a multiple of the heat that would be absorbed by the same mass of carbon dioxide(CO2). GWP is 1 for CO2. For other gases it depends on the gas and the time frame.
- Carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e or CO2eq or CO2-e) is calculated from GWP. For any gas, it is the mass of CO2 which would warm the earth as much as the mass of that gas. Thus it provides a common scale for measuring the climate effects of different gases. It is calculated as GWP times mass of the other gas. For example, if a gas has GWP of 100, two tonnes of the gas have CO2e of 200 tonnes.
- GWP was developed to allow comparisons of the global warming impacts of different gases.
- Greenhouse Gas (GHG):
- A greenhouse gas is any gaseous compound in the atmosphere that is capable of absorbing infrared radiation, thereby trapping and holding heat in the atmosphere. By increasing the heat in the atmosphere, greenhouse gases are responsible for the greenhouse effect, which ultimately leads to global warming.
- The main gases responsible for the greenhouse effect include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapor (which all occur naturally), and fluorinated gases (which are synthetic).
- Carbon Dioxide (CO2):
- Primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activities. Carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil), solid waste, trees and other biological materials, and also as a result of certain chemical reactions (e.g., manufacture of cement). Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere (or “sequestered”) when it is absorbed by plants as part of the biological carbon cycle.
- Decarbonization:
- Reduction of carbon dioxide emissions through the use of low carbon power sources, achieving a lower output of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
