The facility for manufacturing collectors in Aveiro (Portugal) is primarily intended to serve the market on the Iberian Peninsula and southern Europe, which is set to grow rapidly in the future. At the same time, it will take the strain off the site of the BBT Thermotechnik subsidiary Solar Diamant in Wettringen, Germany, which is currently running at maximum capacity. The company started producing absorbers in Aveiro in December 2006, and collector production is scheduled to be up and running by February 2007, with planned annual production of 150,000 units. The company has invested approximately two million euros in the new facility, which will have a total workforce of 42.
Solar Diamant, one of the biggest manufacturers of solar collectors in Germany, is benefiting from the strong demand for solar technology. The company, based in Wettringen in Westphalia/Germany, started producing a new generation of flat-plate collectors and accessories in January 2006. An additional production area was set up in Germany, and a completely new production system was taken into operation to handle these new products. Since the start of 2005, the number of employees at the company has more than doubled – totaling around 170 today. However, production at the Wettringen site is not sufficient to meet the increasing demand. The current sales figures clearly exceed all expectations. “The new solar products, which include a whole range of smart ideas, are selling like hot cakes both at home and abroad,” says Gerold Wenisch, managing director of Solar Diamant.
Groundbreaking political decisions relating to energy policy were introduced in 2006 in Spain when the government introduced a new law aimed at encouraging the more efficient use of energy and increasing the share of solar energy in the country. One of the precepts of the new law stipulates that new buildings and buildings undergoing extensive renovations must install solar technology. Experts forecast that this new law will revolutionize the Spanish market for solar energy. A market volume of around 2.1 million square meters of collector area is being predicted from 2006 to 2010 – four times the amount in 2005. The trend in Portugal is similar. There too, solar energy and other renewable sources of energy have been made mandatory in all new buildings. These developments are opening up opportunities for BBT Thermotechnik GmbH to strengthen its market position in the area of renewable energies on the Iberian Peninsula and expand the company’s leading position in the overall market for heating technology in Spain.
