Hager Energy: Leadership

As the world is leaving fossil fuels behind and turning to renewables, solutions to work around the unreliability of renewable energy availability have shifted sharply into focus.

Andreas Piepenbrink, founder of E3/DC has been active in the energy management market for many years and is bringing his expertise to Hager Group. Together with seasoned manager Becher and their highly skilled and dedicated teams, they are confident their products will play a major role in fuelling homes and vehicles with renewable energy. Their products will also enable the brand-new concept of bidirectional charging, effectively turning EVs and their batteries into mobile electricity storage units.

We spoke to them to find out more about their products and their progress.

Congratulations to you both! We imagine you are very excited about this new opportunity. Andreas, what will you be focusing on?
My passion for engineering and vision for what’s possible have taken E3/DC to this exciting new juncture. Sales & Marketing and Engineering is definitely what my focus is on. 

And Rémy, what will be your focus?
With my many years of management experience, I will make sure everything runs smoothly and we meet our objectives. I will concentrate on the value chain, including quality and customer care, as wellas product marketing. As we go ahead and learn more about our market, we might of course adapt responsibilities and structures as needed. 

Hager Group has the ambition to play a leading role in the Energy Management sector. Andreas, how do you see Hager Group’s position within the next, say, three and then 10 years?
In Germany, E3/DC is already an established player in the field of battery storage. It is our ambition to gain the same position in all DACH countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) as well as in France by 2023. 

Thinking in the longer term and seeing how demand in this market is about to explode, we also plan to become a recognised player in the EVCS (Electric Vehicle Charging Stations) sector in Europe. A great challenge here is the integration of command & control systems with the Technikzentrale, our German meter board. This is necessary in order to offer energy management solutions at a residential, local level.  

Rémy, what market opportunities can we seize now that Hager and E3/DC are part of the same Business Unit?
The creation of this Business Unit is an excellent opportunity to align our respective resources and competencies for energy management.

Our ambition is to help commercial customers and private households achieve a high degree of energy autonomy, based on the use of renewables. As solar energy is not always supplied exactly when required, reliable storage systems to capture this green energy are essential. 

The Technikzentrale must be our base for energy management, EVCS and storage. The combination of Technikzentrale and our technology offers our electricians a great opportunity to bring reliable electric distribution into the world of renewable energy.

Andreas, what will Hager Energy focus on in order to grow?
One of our greatest challenges is to master the charging software technology for Hager Group EVCS products globally. We’remaking great progress in this area and will become a significant player in charging solutions for new infrastructure players in the domains of oil, gas, and utilities.

With a new enlarged team on both sides of the Franco-German border, how do you plan to proceed?
Andreas: The many opportunities and challenges the future holds are a great inspiration for us and our highly qualified and motivated Franco-German team is working extra hard to perfect our products for the global market. The fact that I am German and Rémy is French, might serve as a perfect example of Hager Group’s culture and roots. 
 
Remy: We will be very pragmatic in our project management, relying on short and lean decision paths. And as you say Andreas, ours and our team’s complementary skills and experience will stand us in good stead for the future.