REpower cooperates with Hamburg University of Technology

Hamburg, 10 October 2007. REpower Systems AG (WKN 617703) has joined forces with the renowned Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) at the start of the 2007/2008 winter semester to launch an exclusive sponsorship program. The Hamburg-based manufacturer of wind turbines will support each of the ten best students of a given year in the new three-year electrical engineering Bachelor course with funding of EUR 500,00 per semester, as both partners announced today during the official signing of the agreement on the premises of the TUHH in Hamburg-Harburg.

The programme will kick off with the first-year students of the Bachelor degree course in electrical engineering during the winter semester, which starts on 22 October. Those students with the ten best marks at the end of the first semester, in early 2008, will receive the tuition fees for their successfully completed 2007/2008 winter semester reimbursed retroactively. The company is setting aside a total of EUR 5,000.00 per semester for this purpose, with the amount of sponsorship in 2008 awarded to successful students of the 2007/2008 winter semester and 2008 summer semester already coming to EUR 10,000.00. In 2009, this will go up to EUR 20,000.00, and in 2010 all six year groups of the six-semester course will for the first time receive funding, which will amount to EUR 30,000.00.

All students of the new Bachelor course in electrical engineering will take part in the selection process, as long as the individual student has attended all lectures in accordance with the degree syllabus and taken the corresponding exams for the first time. For each student, the average of the exam results achieved in each semester will be calculated.

During today’s ceremony, TUHH President, Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Edwin Kreuzer, explained the benefits of the REpower sponsorship programme: “We are delighted about this innovative form of sponsorship by a forward-looking Hamburg-based company such as REpower. Students of electrical engineering at the TUHH who perform well are not only rewarded with good marks but additionally with a material countervalue of their successfully completed semester. The particular attraction of this generous sponsorship programme is that all students in this subject receive this opportunity again every semester, thereby creating an ongoing incentive to do well that pays off financially.”

“It is after all the art of engineering for which we rightfully earn respect in the world. As an expanding company, successful in the wind energy sector in Germany and abroad, we also need to secure the bright sparks of tomorrow. It is time for it to pay off again to study engineering in Germany,” points out Prof. Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, CEO of funding partner REpower, in a bid to explain the rationale behind the joint venture with the TUHH. He continues: “If the federal state governments are unable to achieve this, the business world itself must take action and create incentives again by promoting challenging degree courses such as electrical or mechanical engineering. We need innovative ideas and we must convey a sense of pleasure in drawing up intelligent technical solutions. It is to be hoped that our partnership idea serves as an approach that is copied at other universities.”

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Maier, Head of the School of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the TUHH, adds: “This sponsorship from REpower is an example of the promotion of young talent in best Hanseatic tradition.”

REpower currently employs over 1,000 staff worldwide, and one in five of its employees is an engineer. REpower, the third largest manufacturer of wind turbines in Germany, produces its self-designed multi-megawatt turbines at Husum as well as in Trampe (Brandenburg), and will in future produce the offshore wind turbine REpower 5M at Bremerhaven as well as Osterrönfeld (Schleswig-Holstein). Both production plants are currently under construction.