Kurt-Christoph von Knobelsdorff assumes management of NOW GmbH
Berlin, 15 May 2020 – With immediate effect, Kurt-Christoph von Knobelsdorff is the new Managing Director (Chair) of NOW GmbH and together with Wolfgang Axthammer, manages the company. Knobelsdorff also acts as management spokesperson. He succeeds Dr. Klaus Bonhoff, who has become Director-General for Policy Issues in the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI). Knobelsdorff is an economist and was most recently Director-General at the Ministry for Economic Affairs, Labour and Energy for the state of Brandenburg.
Knobelsdorff: “With its coordination of federal government programmes, political consulting and networking at the interface of politics, industry, municipalities and science, NOW GmbH makes a major contribution to achieving the climate objectives to which Germany has committed itself. I am looking forward to being able to play my part in overcoming the challenges ahead together with my dedicated colleagues at NOW GmbH. We must facilitate the breakthrough of environmental technologies in transport and beyond, and we must do it now. Certainly one of the most urgent issues is the accelerated development of infrastructure for battery and fuel cell passenger vehicles, but also the electrification of commercial vehicles including the development of the appropriate refuelling and charging infrastructure.”
Commissioned by the BMVI, NOW GmbH coordinates the implementation of the National Innovation Programme for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology as well as the funding guidelines for (local) electric mobility and charging infrastructure. Furthermore it supports the BMVI in designing the Mobility and Fuels Strategy, which includes implementing funding measures in the area of renewable fuels, LNG seagoing vessels as well as the shoreside/ onboard electricity supply of seagoing and inland vessels.
Knobelsdorff: “The ability of NOW GmbH to build networks on the programme level, as well as nationally and internationally constitutes a vital foundation for the implementation of the National Hydrogen Strategy. Following its adoption, NOW GmbH will actively bring its expertise to the table in accompanying the strategy and the agreed measures. In order for environmental technologies like hydrogen and electricity from renewable energies in the transport area to penetrate on a large scale, we must also strengthen our regional approach of national, federal state, and municipal cooperation.”
Since the beginning of the year, NOW GmbH supports the ministry in further developing the National Competence Network for Sustainable Mobility (NaKoMo). Comprised of the federal government, federal states and municipalities, the network will promote the building and development of practical competences on alternative drives and fuels. At the beginning of the year NOW was commissioned by the BMVI to establish the National Coordination Centre for Charging Infrastructure. Especially because of activity coordination on a national and federal state level, the centre will help ensure that the swift construction of a national and user-friendly charging infrastructure for up to ten million e-vehicles by 2030 is a success. An initial operative goal of the coordination centre currently in development is the construction of 1,000 fast-charging stations (high-power charging). New financing models are now in preparation phase.
NOW GmbH is active in the Export Initiative for Environmental Technologies for the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and supports the further development of German-Japanese cooperation in the area of power-to-gas technology. In addition NOW GmbH is active in numerous committees and initiatives to establish hydrogen technology internationally.