Innovation & Digitalisation

Innovation & Entrepreneurship

A green energy supply requires new, climate-neutral technologies. OGE not only works on developing these itself, but also manages and leverages external innovation.

The integration of start-ups and new technologies is at the core of the Open Innovation methodology, making it an integral part of our innovation process.

Our Open Innovation approach aims to harness ideas, knowledge and resources from different sources instead of relying solely on internal resources and development. In this way, we open ourselves up to the external environment to foster innovation.

To this end, we actively cooperate with start-ups and other companies, share ideas with other European network operators and develop a cross-company innovation network. We provide platforms for exchange and integrate external ideas into our processes. We believe that we can only master the energy transition collectively and have coined the slogan "Hydrogen is teamwork!" for our hydrogen projects.

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OGE Innovator Challenge

Think like an entrepreneur, act like an entrepreneur: Entrepreneurship at OGE

The OGE Innovator Challenge is a company-wide innovation competition designed to encourage intrapreneurs within the organisation.

Its aim is to make entrepreneurship at OGE a hands-on and tangible experience that harnesses the entrepreneurial innovation potential within the company. Therefore, the OGE Innovator Challenge is aimed at our employees and comprises a programme (3 months) in which selected teams participate. The teams of this year's OGE Innovator Challenge have been given the opportunity to participate in the "H2UB Bootcamp Spin-Off Edition" of H2UB GmbH (h2ub.com). The "H2UB Bootcamp Spin-Off Edition" was organised with the support of BRYCK GmbH & Co. KG (bryck.com). During the bootcamp, the teams examined and further developed their ideas and the underlying logic of their business models. The OGE Innovator Challenge ends with a final event, at which the teams pitch their ideas to a jury of experts. The winning team receives the OGE Innovator Award and a further development budget for their idea of up to 100,000 euros. The OGE Innovator Challenge promotes cross-disciplinary and cross-hierarchical cooperation through interdisciplinary teams and networking across company boundaries. In this way, conventional structures and processes are broken down and pioneering spirit and entrepreneurship are encouraged. This creates an entrepreneurial mindset.

Contact: Dr Katharina Rothe

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Venture client approach

Strengthening cooperation between OGE & start-ups

The venture client approach makes OGE a client for a budding company whose product, service or technology is not yet fully developed. 

It allows existing challenges and problems in individual areas of our company to be identified with a view to determining specific needs and deriving fields of action to solve the issues with an innovative start-up as part of an initial pilot project. This creates a non-binding partnership between the start-up and OGE in the sense of a customer-supplier relationship. 

Once relevant problems have been defined internally within the company, potential start-ups with promising solutions are selected for review and evaluated in more detail. The prime aim here is to strengthen cooperation with start-ups.

Contact: Achmed Junusov

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ETIS

European TSO Innovation Summit

Together with other infrastructure operators in Europe, ETIS aims to create an exchange opportunity for the joint development of innovative solutions for a sustainable and future-proof energy transition.

ETIS is a series of events through which European infrastructure managers can share common issues and challenges in order to develop joint initiatives. 

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Contact: Dr. Jan-Nils Liesebach

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HySchool

Building H₂ knowledge with the HySchool continuing education programme

HySchool was created in 2021 as a joint project of OGE and the RWTH Business School and aims to provide the expertise for companies to ramp up the hydrogen economy.

In the process, further education is combined with concrete projects. This enables participants to develop and implement a hydrogen strategy for their own organisation or division.

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Contact: Timon Burger

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evety

The first consultancy with a focus on renewable energies and hydrogen

In 2019, OGE founded the consultancy evety together with Horvath & Partners and TÜV Süd.

evety has a clear focus on renewable energies, where it provides a range of support from consultancy services and project planning to project delivery. evety thereby helps to address the current challenge faced by many companies: building knowledge around renewable energies, especially in the field of hydrogen.

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Contact: Dr. Jan-Nils Liesebach

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H2UB

The first hydrogen hub for start-ups, companies and research in Europe

In 2021, the first European Hydrogen Hub for start-ups, companies and research was founded by OGE, RAG Foundation and TÜV Süd. 

The H2UB is the solution to the problem that the hydrogen economy has developed very slowly up until now. In order to proactively and, above all, quickly support the development of a hydrogen ecosystem and allow players to network and share ideas, the H2UB serves as a physical and digital facility, creating synergies to accelerate the development of the hydrogen market in Europe.

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Contact: Achmed Junusov

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Co-Innovate @ Zollverein

OGE is an active member of the Digital Campus Zollverein

On the premises of the Zollverein World Heritage Site, OGE is developing new, digital business models and process innovations together with other Essen-based companies.

The aim is to create a digital, industrial ecosystem in which B2B companies work with each other and with start-ups on digital topics. The main topics are the development of a "digital twin" for the simulation of network situations and the use of drones in conjunction with big data to optimise maintenance processes.

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Contact: Christoph Gedwien

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