2 May 2013 – Conergy is expanding its collaboration with energy suppliers further and joining public utility company Stadtwerke Winsen (Luhe) as well as representatives from Harburg District Council at the inauguration of a 100 kilowatt Conergy solar power plant. The rooftop plant is located on the Harburg District Council building in Winsen an der Luhe, south of Hamburg in Germany. The district had offered a lease on the 600 square metre roof area in the autumn of 2012. Stadtwerke Winsen (Luhe) won the tender for this project in close cooperation with Conergy. Acting as general contractor, Conergy was not only responsible for the planning and configuration of the plant as well as the supply of the components but also for the construction, for which it collaborated with its certified installation partner Schmidtlein Solartechnik.

The over 400 Conergy modules "made in Germany" installed on Conergy SunTop mounting systems will be producing some 82,000 kilowatt hours of green electricity per year, which corresponds roughly to the annual consumption of 23 private households. At the same time, the plant will be preventing the emission of 40 tonnes of damaging CO2 each year, equivalent to the amount that four hectares of forest would be able to absorb over the same period.

Stadtwerke Winsen (Luhe): Decentralised energy supply is the model of the future

"Renewable energies, and particularly environmentally friendly customer generation using photovoltaics, are the future," said Mathias Eik, Managing Director of Stadtwerke Winsen (Luhe). "There are interesting investment options available for us as a public utility company in this area. We are taking advantage of the opportunities of the energy transition and of the market for growth and have therefore been relying increasingly on solar since 2011, which has been helping us to reduce our dependence on third parties. In line with our integrated energy generation and climate protection concept, we intend to strategically expand this segment further as an important cornerstone of the supply of energy in our town and region in the future. By turning to photovoltaic plants we want to enter interesting new territory, selling the electricity directly locally rather than feeding it into the grid. This is no doubt an interesting model for the future, which we intend to pursue further."

Conergy: New business models for energy suppliers from consultancy to implementation

Conergy and Stadtwerke Winsen (Luhe) started their collaboration back last year. Some joint customer events on the energy saving potentials offered by photovoltaics and LED technology have now been followed by the first project at the District Council building.

"In the course of the energy transition, photovoltaics is playing an increasingly important part for energy suppliers," said Sven Meder, responsible for the business area of energy suppliers at Conergy. "But in order to integrate solar successfully into their portfolio, energy suppliers need good consultancy services and a strong partner. Our knowledge of the PV market is extensive and we have developed business models that do not rely on subsidies under the EEG (German Renewable Energy Sources Act), which help energy suppliers to attract new customers and strengthen customer loyalty. These models cover everything from selling the solar power directly to end consumers to renting out photovoltaic plants all the way to selling entire solar power plants to end customers. Conergy constructs turnkey plants of all sizes and offers all associated services both before and after installation. This allows energy suppliers to benefit from the advantages of decentralised energy supply through solar power without having to procure additional resources themselves."

Conergy realises smaller-scale plants from around 5 kilowatt capacity on the rooftops of private homes via its country-wide network of certified partners such as Schmidtlein Solartechnik from Langwedel. In order to guarantee top quality standards in the implementation of these smaller solar projects, Conergy has a certification process for its installation partners in place, which involves comprehensive theoretical and practical training as well as testing of specialist knowledge and quality of workmanship. The system solution provider deploys its own engineers to realise larger power plants between 500 kilowatt and multi-megawatt capacity.

Harburg District: Further component of our climate protection mission

Harburg District Councillor Joachim Bordt stressed his delight in witnessing the inauguration of the new photovoltaic plant on the roof of the District Council building in Winsen (Luhe): "The new plant is a further component of our climate protection mission and represents an important step for the successful implementation of the energy transition in the district." He added that the district would be making further roof areas available for solar energy exploitation in the future under its climate protection concept."