Energy & Infrastructure

The energy and infrastructure sectors are experiencing nothing less than a revolution as they face a number of urgent global challenges - challenges that demand innovation.

Urgent Challenges Ahead

Germany is the European hub for electricity. With its central location in Europe, Germany is the hub for European electricity flows, directly exchanging electricity with nine neighboring countries. A major part of these cross-border flows does not constitute contractually agreed deliveries but transit quantities and loop flows.

The Energy & Infrastructure sectors in Germany face profound transformations.

AmropCivitas helps companies build a solid talent management strategy, identifying the Leaders For What’s Next™ who can enable them to capitalize on evolving opportunities and take their business into new high-growth areas.

Drawing on our experts across the world, AmropCivitas’ dedicated teams of professional consultants take a structured approach to executive search based on their knowledge of the market and its key players, industry trends and a broad network of high-level relationships.

Our practice in Germany is configured to meet the demands of the following industry sub-sectors:

Energy: Electricity, Oil and Gas, Nuclear, Green Technology
Infrastructure: Road, Rail, Ports, Pipelines, Water, Waste, Telecoms.

Navigating Talent Shortages

In Germany, AmropCivitas has been called on to navigate talent shortages and supply leadership that can embrace diverse stakeholder priorities, while keeping a tight rein on risk management. AmropCivitas has the expertise to provide the top leadership talent needed to meet accelerating growth demands in this fast-changing sector.

Our track record speaks for itself: over the past eight years, we have conducted 100+ search assignments in infrastructure. Some 40% of our work is executed in utilities, 50% in construction and new infrastructure, and the remainder mainly in steel and building materials. More than 70% of our search assignments are at board, CEO, C-Suite, or senior technical level.

AmropCivitas Partners and Researchers combine deep sectorial knowledge with local market expertise, backed by global resources. We work closely with clients in the cost-effective, robust, and sustainable deployment of global talent.

AmropCivitas is happy to discuss your needs and help you fill your open positions.

1Energy

There is no other European country with as many energy supply companies as Germany. Alongside a series of major companies, there is a substantial number of small and medium-sized energy suppliers, the majority of which are in municipal ownership. Overall, they account for more than two thirds of all companies. In total, there are around 2,250 companies active on the German energy market – their fields of activity cover everything from the generation or production of electricity, heating, and natural gas to the operation of energy storage facilities, power line and pipeline networks and the supply to end-users on a local and regional level.

Despite many mergers, particularly at a regional level, the number of companies active in the German energy market today is considerably higher than prior to liberalization in 1998. Suppliers that mainly serve private customers are predominantly multi-utility companies who offer their customers a variety of product packages for natural gas, district heating, electricity and often also water.

Many new suppliers but also many established energy suppliers now offer their products across multiple regions within Germany or even nationwide. This continues to lead to slightly increasing year-on-year rates of switching. The range of products offered by the energy providers today often includes green energy tariffs.

Electricity from renewables is generated by Wind and hydropower, biomass, municipal waste, and photovoltaics. Renewables delivered a gross figure of around 41 per cent of the (net) electricity generation in Germany.

Sector coupling is the linking of electricity, heating, mobility, and industrial processes and their infrastructures in terms of energy technology and energy business. Sector coupling is a significant element within the implementation of the Energiewende [German energy transition]:

Integration of renewables
Decarbonization of all sectors
Supporting security of supply and
Increasing flexibility in the energy system

Use cases of sector coupling include power-to-gas (PtG) and power-to-heat (PtH) as well as eMobility.

For eMobility, the focus in Germany lies on the expansion of the charging infrastructure, which is continuing at a fast pace. In April 2020, there were 27,730 publicly available charging points available in Germany, of which 2,480 are rapid charging points. As such, the number of publicly available charging stations had grown by 60 per cent since April 2019. In the city rankings, Munich (1,185 charging points), Hamburg (1,096) and Berlin (1,052 charging points) occupy the top spots.

2Infrastructure: Essential infrastructure – encompassing utilities across road, rail, ports, water, waste, and telecoms – underpins mature economies and the development of emerging markets.

Germany has long put up with crowded highways, inconsistent rail travel and slow or nonexistent internet. With elections approaching and a pandemic raging, the problems may have become too big to ignore.

Many have complained for years that Germany is suffering by not investing more in infrastructure. In the 2019 Global Competitiveness Report from the World Economic Forum, Germany fell four places from the year before, from third place to seventh.

Rail and Road

Decades of neglect on top of growing demand have left a large share of Germany's complex network of roads and railroads in need of rehabilitation. Germany's autobahn and train lines are overburdened by the volume of modern-day traffic. Around metropolitan areas, traffic jams and train delays are routine. Travelers are used to weighing the risk of spending hours caught in traffic against the likelihood of train delays.

Mobility of people in Germany is expected to increase by more than 4% by 2030 compared with 2017, according to a 2019 report from business daily Handelsblatt, and freight transport volume is expected to increase by a staggering 25%.

The federal government has sought to address these problems in recent years with the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan. This increased spending on transportation infrastructure provides 270bn Euro in funding to improve roads, rail, and waterway over the next 10 to 15 years. The project "Digital Rail Germany," introduced in January 2020, aims to increase performance of Germany's rail network by as much as 35%. But the digitalization of Germany's transport network will depend on the country pulling off a transition to 5G broadband that is still in process.

Bridges and Waterways

Around 11,000 of Germany's 25,000 rail bridges are over 100 years old. Some 4% of them are in unsatisfactory condition and represent a rehabilitation value of 7.3bn Euro.

Germany's waterways tell a similar story: Many bridges, locks and dams are old and in need of repair. The Federal Association of German Inland Navigation (BDB) has complained that its annual budget is 200mio Euro short of what is necessary to maintain the rivers and canals used for transport.

In spring 2021, the government and Deutsche Bahn announced a financing agreement that provides for the "complete or partial renewal of a total of 2,000 bridges." Around 9bn Euro are earmarked for these renovations, to be completed by 2029.

Digital Transformation

Despite its status as one of the world's most advanced economies, slow or spotty internet connectivity remains a frustration in Germany. Even without a pandemic, the demands on digital infrastructure are expected to increase significantly in the coming years, driven by the advent of autonomous driving and the digitalization of the industrial sector, known as Industry 4.0. Digital infrastructure is increasingly becoming a prerequisite for innovative technological applications and new business models.

Early 2021, telecommunication companies Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica / O2 announced they would cooperate to close several hundred so-called "gray spots" in Germany. Gray spots are areas where only some internet companies provide internet, which limits internet access to their customers. The cooperation aims to complete 4G network coverage in Germany. Deutsche Telekom said it currently provides 5G access to 80% of Germany and it expects to extend that to 90% of the population by 2022

Budgetary Policy

Governments across the globe understand the need to invest more in infrastructure, and they are looking to the private sector for funding and expertise. This has resulted in greater collaboration and a surge in public-private partnerships.

For years, Germany's federal government has adhered to spending policies guided by the "black zero," a commitment to a balanced budget and to not taking on new debt. While this strategy might be second nature to a society wary of taking out credit, in practice it has led to a significant lack of investment in infrastructure.

On the one hand, years of pinching pennies positioned the EU's largest economy to unleash massive waves of financial relief after the coronavirus pandemic hit. On the other hand, the country's digital infrastructure was ill-equipped to handle the sudden increase in demand as schools and workplaces shifted online. Particularly public services, long known for having lots of red tape and using behind-the-times technology, have come under fire for failing to adapt to the exceptional situation presented by the pandemic.