Jannis Rudzki-Weise wrote his bachelor’s thesis on the potential of the social web for corporate communication in the renewable energy industry. He conducted interviews at four international companies in this sector for his thesis. Jannis shares his insights on the value of entering the social web, factors businesses should consider, and concrete recommendations for action.
Dry red earth. The sun is shining. PV modules are gleaming in the light. The PV plant is operating at full capacity. We’re in Mali. An off-grid system was just recently commissioned here in this western African country. And now it’s supplying electric current to private homes, a school, several workshops, a hotel, and a number of businesses. Building an off-grid energy system like this one requires a reliable inverter that can create and manage a power distribution grid. And ours is called the Sunny Island. It provides a means to supply electricity to under-developed areas or even closer to home in a remote cottage in the German Alps using renewable energy.
The air is getting thinner for the major players of the conventional energy industry in Germany – their once stable business model has eroded over the years and, along with it, their influence over the highest echelons of political power. If they could have predicted eleven years ago that photovoltaics and wind energy would become as widespread and technologically advanced as they are today in Germany, then the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) as an effective policy for subsidizing renewable energy would never have passed.
Makiko Hayashi-Witolla is a native Japanese living in Luxembourg. She learns firsthand about the effects that the March 2011 tsunami and disaster in Fukushima are having on her homeland, even one year later. Her family and friends who live in Nagoya (about 400 kilometers from Fukushima) have to cope with a completely new daily life. I had the opportunity to speak with Makiko Hayashi-Witolla.
I feel fortunate that I can be a part of a small Czech & Slovak team at the SMA branch, which was founded in 2009 in Prague, pioneering within the Central and Eastern Europe. Thanks to geographical, linguistic and cultural proximity, right from the beginning we were managing not only the Czech Republic, but we have taken neighbouring Slovakia, smaller but promising market, under our patronage as well. And because “the only certainty is a constant change”, not even two years later, even more promising emerging neighbouring markets started to shape up!
Powered by Lifestream.
