Thorsten Hickmann*
Managing Director of Eisenhuth Gmbh & Co. KG, Germany
*Corresponding author:Thorsten Hickmann, Managing Director of Eisenhuth Gmbh & Co. KG, Germany
Submission: April 2, 2021;Published: April 8, 2021
Volume7 Issue1April, 2021
Society is facing major challenges today and they affect all actors worldwide: issues such
as climate protection, scarcity of resources, demographic change and upheavals in the world
of work are increasing the pressure, especially in industrial companies, to act sustainably. In
particular, politicians and society now increasingly expect companies to take responsibility for
their actions and their impact on society. This means that companies must also act responsibly
and sustainably „beyond the narrow boundaries of the company“ and „into overlapping sociopolitical
fields of responsibility“ [1]. In addition to economic success, sustainable management
also pursues ecological and social goals within the company, in the corporate environment
and in society as a whole [2].
The topic of self-sufficient energy supply for companies plays a very important role in
this area. Sustainability is often understood to mean, above all, the ecological orientation of
corporate or political decisions. In this light, the sustainability of energy supply in Germany is
often discussed very critically. However, if one expands the understanding of the term beyond
the field of ecology, it becomes apparent that sustainability is at least partly inherent in
energy supply: Grids and generation plants have lifetimes of several decades and thus require
planning based on the long term [3]. This is precisely where a rethink is currently taking place
at high speed.
Against this background, however, many small and medium-sized enterprises are
confronted with rapid changes in society, energy industry regulation, changing technologies
and a growing competitive landscape.
Self-sufficient energy supply is not just a separate field of action, rather it makes sense
to look at it as a whole. Industrial enterprises in market economy systems are generally
committed to the original operational target system with the profit target as the core priority
[4]. Initially, the sustainability goal does not change the core goal of profit maximisation.
Rather, it is a matter of integrating sustainability as complementarily as possible into the
target system of industrial companies. There are a number of parallels here with regard to
the company sub-goals, such as high product quality and resource-conserving use of raw
materials. These sub-goals also have profit-increasing or cost-reducing effects.
In other words, it is about „bringing together“ the goal of increasing value in the individual
economy with the value-oriented social goal of achieving added value for society as a whole,
which also includes sustainability [5]. In short, the new formula is „profit and sustainability“
instead of „profit or sustainability“. Or as it is aptly stated in Daimler‘s Sustainability Report
2018 [6]: „Our most important corporate goal is to grow profitably in a sustainable manner.
Of particular importance is the short- or long-term orientation of the relevant operational
targets, such as cash flow, return on investment and EBIT [7]. Sustainability is per se longterm
oriented, e.g. due to the inherent generational reference.
Companies often find themselves in a latent dilemma situation: shareholder-related
short-term and continuous profit generation is often only compatible to a limited extent with
sustainability activities that often only increase value in the long term, but have a cost-relevant
impact in the short term. The increased orientation towards stakeholder value, which is also in the long-term interest of shareholders who provide capital and
expect returns, can promote the necessary reorientation towards
long-term, sustainable thinking, which can also produce periodrelevant
results, e.g. in energy savings. Sustainable thinking does
not exclude short-term results.
In principle, the starting points for sustainable management
in industrial companies can be found in almost all functional areas.
In the energy sector, one approach is the creation of a complete
system for the demonstration of self-sufficient hydrogen use. Here,
a „green“ system is to be created that is able to temporarily store
electricity with the help of the conversion of water to hydrogen.
The energy is released via a downstream fuel cell. The concept is
shown in Figure 1. The planned system is to be self-sufficient, have
an electrolyser and a as its basic pillars, hereinafter also referred to
as Autark-Elys. Autark-Elys consists of an electrolyser and a fuel cell
as individual components which, when connected together, form a
complete system. In a first step, a system with a nominal electrical
fuel cell power of max. 200 to 250watts and a continuous operating
power of 100 to 200 watts is to be designed. In a further step, the
system is to be scaled up to 1KW output. If necessary, even larger
systems will be created at a later stage.
Figure 1: Concept of the Autark- Elys plant.
Figure 2:rall circuit of the self-sufficient energy system as a control cabinet system (Autark- Elys plant).
© 2021 Thorsten Hickmann. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.