HangOut July 14: Pathways Towards renewable energy

From their own perspective, our four speakers underline the misunderstanding concerning the natural energies. While the renewable resources could outgrow our needs, we are still waiting. In certain respects Germany should be taken as a model. Indeed, 32% of its energy are already coming from natural sources.

Then reducing energy consumption is only part of the solution. Increasing solar and wind energies is becoming more urgent than ever.In that context, citizens must be at the forefront of environmental protection. We can no longer expect everything from the government or the private companies. Changing our habits will definitely make the world a better place.

On the one hand, insights and advice improving energy monitoring must be given to the companies, to improve their energy monitoring. The technology is here, we just need to mainstream it. On the other hand, popular education is a key issue. Sharing ideas and knowledge must be strongly supported. “More people doing small things, that´s what we need” told our speakers.

Everyone must be convinced that doing, even small things, would have a great impact.  According to our participants, producing our own renewable electricity could be easy. Working together, starting in our neighbourhoods, would involve all of us. Be part of it !

Manuel Bickel, Doctoral Fellow, Leuphana University

Doctoral Fellow (Sustainability of Urban Energy Systems) Leuphana University Lüneburg

The thesis is part of the research initiative “Germany – Europe – World: 2042. Transformation is possible” which has been launched by the the Faculty of Sustainability as a longitudinal study with the aim to measure and analyse the societal transformation towards sustainability. Focus of the thesis will be the sustainability assessment of urban energy systems using the example of local climate protection concepts. Following methodological approaches are considered: qualitative assessment on basis of conceptual considerations derived from the field of “general systems theory”, text mining and semantic network analysis methods with R on basis of supervised machine learning as well as conventional statistical indicator analysis.

Ana Terroba,  Regional Director, Latin America, The South Pole Group

• With several years of experience in the environmental sector, I have collaborated with local governments, non-profit organisations, and the private sector carrying-out greenhouse gases emission reduction and energy efficiency initiatives, awareness-raising and training activities, among others.
  
  At South Pole Group, I am responsible of local office management, including: HR, business development, PR, and participation in different events and media. I developed the first-ever registered large scale and multi-technology CDM Program of Activities: “Mexican Renewable Energy Alliance”. The implementation of this PoA, which encompasses 27 projects with a total installed capacity of about 2,000 MW, is among my top current responsibilities. I have also developed GHG mitigation feasibility studies and CDM assessments for several GHG mitigation initiatives in Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, related to energy efficiency, renewable energy, wastewater treatment and biogas recovery.

Dr. Marco Blumendorf, Chief Technology Officer, smartB Energy Management GmbH

• 7 years project management and leadership experience
• 12 years work experience in research and industry
• overseas experience (lived in America and Australia, extended stays in Asia and New Zealand)
• doctoral degree, summa cum laude
• goal-oriented and strong team worker and leader
• enthusiastic, hard working and fascinated by everything new and unusual
• strong writing and communication skills
• proposing, coordinating and leading scientific projects
• organization of conferences, workshop and meetings
• reviewing and program committee membership
• more than 30 scientific publications and presentations
• supervision of doctoral, phd students and master students

Ulrike Hinz, Project Manager bei ubitricity. Co-Founder and Chairperson GreenBuzz Berlin e.V.

Co-Founder and Chairperson, GreenBuzz Berlin e.V.
GreenBuzz Berlin e.V. is an association to support sustainability on regional and international level through research, education and networking. We are organizing the event series Sustainabillity Drinks Berlin. Find out more at http://greenbuzzberlin.de/.