ENERGY HILLS E.V.
[BIZ/GOV; Aachen, August 30] Energy Hills e.V. will be located at the cross-border science and business park, AVANTIS in Aachen/ Heerlen, which has already attracted significant business interest from the energy sector, exemplified by Solland Solar. The decision on the presidency of Energy Hills e.V. will be decided at the foundation meeting on August 31. Professor Rik de Doncker, the founding director of the E.ON Institute at the RWTH university in Aachen has announced his candidacy. The E.ON Institute with 5 professors and EUR 40 M from E.ON, the power utility, is an important central location on the German side, in Aachen. The energy business, in particular, in the area of sustainable energy, is one of the most important sectors for the future. Experts forecast that the energy sector will drive growth through 2010, in Germany alone, by creating around 60,000 new jobs. The options and opportunities that are available in the Aachen/Heerlen cross-border region are well known. The region is already strong in energy, in Aachen alone there are more than 47 businesses, with an energy orientation or link. More than 15 research and educational institutions with 600 specialist scientists and 2,500 students are involved in energy issues at the RWTH University. In addition to this, the Aachen FH College with its Solar campus at Jülich and the highly developed research and energy focus is generating special competence in the area and beneath the ground the mine-water runs deep.
Fifty representatives from the worlds of business, science and government will be meeting on Friday August the 31st to set up a new business network which will go by the name of ‘Energy Hills’. This initiative has been taken jointly by the cities of Heerlen, Aachen and the business community. Aachen’s mayor Dr. Jurgen Linden authorized the city’s department of Business Development and European affairs to pursue and support the further development of this network on behalf of the city. The new networks’ target is to build a synergy among regional research, education and production players and to offer them a shared institutional framework; further, to bring together the players and the ideas on both the German and Dutch sides. In the Heerlen/Aachen location, there is already a wide range of cross-border regional initiatives. The foundation of Energy Hills e.V. is, for Mayor Linden, an additional important element in profiling Aachen as a city and region for science and business. There are other regional networks, for example, in the automotive and in life sciences’ sectors.
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