Keynote event on electric mobility: “Keeping people moving”

On 29^th January 2015, Hager Group in Blieskastel hosted a keynote event for decision-makers and multipliers from administration, ministries, the research community and the press. The focal point of the day’s presentations and debates was e-mobility and its potential for the environment and the economy. The event was also an opportunity to position the Saarland and the Rhineland-Palatinate as a model region for the whole of Germany.

How can the popular appeal of e-mobility be enhanced even more? How can we demonstrate its practical uses? How mobile do we want to be - and what does that require? On 29^th January 2015, the “Watt” meeting room at Hager Group’s premises in Blieskastel was the venue for a convention of more than 40 decision-makers and multipliers from administration, ministries, the research community and the press, who asked questions, debated interdependencies and developed a number of ideas in regard to e-mobility in the Saar-Palatinate region. Hager Group had teamed up to organise the keynote event with Biosphärenzweckverband Bliesgau, a regional biosphere management organisation, IZES GmbH, an innovative energy research institute based in Saarbrücken, and Energieagentur Rheinland-Pfalz GmbH, the energy agency of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Experts delivered ten short presentations on various subjects such as fossil resources, the market for electrically powered vehicles and e-car sharing. As the host of the event, Hager Group contributed a presentation on charging station infrastructures. The day’s presentations were moderated by Mathias Orth-Heinz from Energieagentur Rheinland-Pfalz and inspired much debate in the coffee breaks. It rapidly became clear that follow-up events would have to be scheduled in order to develop tangible projects based on the ideas presented that day.

“A clear commitment to e-mobility”

Hager Group was represented by company founder Dr. Oswald Hager as well as by Johannes Hauck from Corporate Strategy and Business Development and Reiner Ulrich, product manager for e-car charging stations. “This event clearly signalled Hager Group’s commitment to e-mobility,” commented Johannes Hauck. “Hager Group is a small and medium sized business with global operations but strong regional roots. With this event we want to inspire major players in the Saar-Palatinate region to get things moving, and I believe that these exciting presentations and discussions have helped us to succeed.”

Hager Group’s commitment to e-mobility is closely linked to the responsibility it assumes for the sustainable development of the company. After all, electrically powered vehicles minimise noise and polluting emissions - and because they use regenerative energy, charging them is carbon-neutral. “That’s why electric mobility isn’t just good for the environment, it increasingly also makes economic sense,” said Johannes Hauck. “We want to demonstrate that e-mobility makes it possible to reconcile environmental concerns with economic development in our region, without users being restricted in any way.”

As the event drew to a close, participants joined the moderator in filling an “ideas vault” with a large number of possible projects for the future. These will be discussed and put into practice at future keynote events. “The Saar-Palatinate region has the economic potential to become a model region for Germany when it comes to e-mobility,” concluded Johannes Hauck.