Mennekes Elektrotechnik GmbH & Co. KG is a German manufacturer of industrial plugs and connectors with headquarters in Kirchhundem in the Sauerland region, Germany. The Mennekes company was founded in 1935 when Aloys Mennekes received the master craftsmen senior electrician certificate and set up his own business. Today Mennekes has over 1000 employees worldwide and generates a consolidated revenue of about €130 million. The company's headquarters is still in Kirchhundem in the south of Sauerland with additional factories in Neudorf/Erzgebirge, and Nanjing. Mennekes has 16 offices in Germany, 80 offices worldwide and a number of international co-operations. The owner and current managing director is Walter Mennekes, who is also board member of the Zentralverband Elektrotechnik- und Elektronikindustrie. The roots of the factory business live in the "Glühauf" invention made after World War II, which allowed to open the first manufacturing factory in 1948. Later in 1951 an aluminium casting metalworks was added, which functioned as foundation of a fabric that nowadays manufactures over 11,000 different products – including all standardized plugs and various industrial variants.
Mennekes connector
Although a well-known producer in the industrial sector for decades, Mennekes became better known to the general public for their compliant electric vehicle car recharging connector developed based on requirements from RWE and Daimler. Mennekes had a background in the design of charging couplers based on the IEC 60309 standard including variants like the CEEplus that included additional signal wires. During the initial presentations in 2009 the new connector had been referenced after its creator and only manufacturer as the "Mennekes design" plug. The actual specification was published formally by VDE in the VDE-AR-E 2623-2-2 publication. Two years later the specification was taken over by the internationalIEC 62196 as "Type 2" connector but the original nickname is kept in informal conversations. As the term Mennekes Connector is ambiguous Mennekes itself uses the term in press coverage along with a clarification as "Type 2". With the introduction of the first electric cars in the UK they were initially able to connect to the electricity grid with using a 3-pin domestic socket or a "Type 1" connection as it was developed in the USA as SAE J1772. The ACEA however settled on the "Type 2" connector that allows access to the 3-phase power grid. The UK Department for Transport agreed with the position and funding for charging stations favours the Type 2 connector. Many charging point manufacturers are beginning to include a "Type 2 Mode 3" socket in addition to a domestic 3-pin socket on their products.
