Strengthening Europe’s Industrial Heartbeat: From Stockholm to Mannheim

The human heart doesn’t beat at the same speed all the time. That would be inefficient. Rather, it speeds up when you run and slows down when you rest. This is the same principle that Orgalim member ABB applies to variable speed drives: a technology that can help optimise processes and improve energy efficiency.
 
Orgalim Director General Ulrich Adam, Senior Managers Stéphanie Mittelham and Federica Boledi, and Policy Manager Laure Dulière visited the ABB Campus in Mannheim recently to see first-hand the tangible technologies powering the green transition and learnt an important statistic: 45% of the world's electricity is converted into motion by electrical motors. Yet 60% of electrical motors still lack variable speed drives, massively reducing efficiency.
 
The visit was followed a few days later by a trip to Stockholm by Orgalim President Javier Ormazabal, Director General Ulrich Adam and Policy Director Daniel Wennick to meet with one of our prominent national members, Teknikföretagen, as well as Scania Group, and IVA. Discussions reinforced the importance of strong cooperation between industry, research and policymakers to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and accelerate advanced manufacturing, electrification and innovation.
 
Both site visits emphasised the same point: the technology exists and is ready to use. The real challenge now is closing the deployment gap and improving Europe's industrial heartbeat.