Our co-founder Martin Schoeller is the great-grandson of the electrical pioneer Oskar von Miller, who founded the Deutsches Museum – and was already promoting the idea of affordable electricity for everyone back then.
When the Deutsches Museum in Munich opened its doors a hundred years ago in May 1925, it was mainly thanks to one man: the founder Oskar von Miller (1855 to 1934), an electrical pioneer and active promoter of science and technology.
Von Miller had studied civil engineering, but then quickly turned his attention to the young field of electrical engineering – with success: in 1882, he organized the first electrical engineering exhibition in Germany, at which he and Marcel Depréz succeeded in transporting electricity over a distance of around 60 kilometers (from Miesbach to Munich).
He then worked as director of the Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft (later: AEG) before founding his own engineering firm in 1890. From then on, he planned hydropower and electricity plants and promoted the development of a Bavarian-wide electricity supply network (this initiative led to the creation of Bayernwerk).
Dampening effect on electricity prices
From 1918 to 1924, he oversaw the construction of what was then the world’s largest storage power plant, the Walchensee power plant, which today belongs to the Uniper Group. Von Miller was always driven by the idea of “social electricity” for everyone. His credo was that innovative technology should serve as many people as possible.
Our co-founder Martin Alexander Schoeller has therefore continued the legacy of his great-grandfather, so to speak, when he launched the Green Energy Storage Initiative in 2023 together with other entrepreneurs and managers. GESI also wants to store electricity on a large scale and make a contribution to ensuring that electricity is available and affordable at all times, even in the age of renewable energy (studies show that large-scale battery storage systems have a strong dampening effect on electricity prices).
Incidentally, Oskar von Miller had been pushing ahead with plans for a large science and technology museum in Munich since 1903. However, as a result of the First World War and hyperinflation, the building on Munich’s Museum Island was only largely completed and opened in 1925.