Consolar has been developing heat storage tanks, solar thermal collectors, PVT collectors for heat pumps, system controllers for almost 30 years, which are characterised by a high level of efficiency.
Interview with Andreas Siegemund, Managing Director of Consolar.
A brief description of the company and its activities.
Andreas Siegemund: Consolar was founded in 1994 and specialises in supplying buildings with energy using highly efficient solar technology. This year we are celebrating our 30th anniversary as a solar pioneer. With our products, our way of working and our corporate decisions, we want to make a contribution to the development of a sustainable, fair and humane society and economy with a rapid transition to a solar/renewable energy supply.
Over 50,000 systems with Consolar technology are in operation throughout Europe. 35 employees work at the Frankfurt and Lörrach sites. Consolar has received many awards and was a finalist in 2022 for the Hessian State Prize for Innovative Energy Solutions from the Hessian Ministry of Economics, Energy, Transport and Housing for its SOLINK PVT heat pump collector.
What are the main areas of activity of the company?
A.S: Our portfolio includes heat storage technology and solar thermal collectors. In addition, we developed the patented PVT collector SOLINK for geothermal heat pumps, which can be used to supply heating and cooling to buildings as the sole source in conjunction with geothermal heat pumps in addition to generating electricity using photovoltaics.
We sell our products through partnerships with major heat pump manufacturers and their installation companies. In the project business, sales are channelled through municipal utilities, planning offices, energy suppliers and property developers.
What are the most innovative products/services marketed?
A.S: With our SOLINK heat pump collectors, we offer a key technology for the decarbonisation of cities. The SOLINK PVT heat pump collector combines photovoltaics (PV) and solar thermal energy (T), generating up to 10 % more electrical energy compared to conventional photovoltaic modules and also delivering two to three times the amount of thermal energy. Designed exclusively for use with brine heat pumps, this combination offers a very energy-efficient system for heating and cooling without any noise and opens up many new application possibilities in urban areas. The collectors on the roof or on the façade can supply all the heating and hot water and replace both geothermal energy and outdoor air blower units. More and more PVT collectors are now being coupled with heat pumps, but often cannot serve as the sole heat source for a heat pump like SOLINK due to their design.
What’s the news about new products/services?
A.S: Our SOLINK heat pump collector has already been installed in more than 5,000 systems across Europe and the technology has established itself as a heat source for heat pumps. Germany’s largest PVT system to date is currently being built on the roof of the dockyard at Berlin’s Osthafen, which is being realised in a climate- and resource-friendly timber hybrid construction. Consolar is supplying 1,300 square metres of SOLINK collector surface for this.
We applied for a patent in Germany back in August 2016. Patents for Europe and China followed in November 2020 and May 2021. We now also have a patent for the USA since April 2024. The patent for the SOLINK PVT air-brine collector protects the design in which the heat exchanger surface is not connected to the PV laminate over a flat surface, but is formed by vertically positioned fins. This results in a much larger heat exchanger surface to the air – the heat exchanger in the SOLINK is eight times as large as the PV surface. The patented structure is designed to maximise heat transfer to the air and minimise ice formation.
We are currently preparing the industrial production of our SOLINK air-brine collector in northern Hesse. Together with our international manufacturing partner AKG, we will manufacture our collector in Germany in future and start scaling it up. We are planning an annual capacity of around 35 megawatts of thermal collector output or 65,000 collectors per year. This is to be multiplied as we grow.
What are the ranges of products/services?
A.S: As a manufacturer and developer of highly efficient solar technology, we ensure that our customers are fully supplied. We offer the appropriate accessories for installation and control for our collector and storage technology. To ensure that the systems are optimally planned, Consolar also offers hydraulic calculations, e.g. to determine pipe diameters for lines, and simulations with Polysun to predict the yield of the collector field. Once a system has been installed, a system check, functional check and support from Consolar are of course included.
What is the state of the market where you are currently active? What can you tell us about market trends?
A.S: The heating market in Germany declined significantly in the first half of the year compared to the previous year. Consumers are unsettled and demand for heat pumps, which can be combined with our SOLINK PVT collectors, has stagnated. Consolar was nevertheless able to hold its own and is clearly outperforming the market.
However, the German government’s goal of climate-neutral heating in Germany by 2045 has been achieved. In many cases, there is no way around heat pumps. In combination with geothermal heat pumps, our system works just as efficiently as geothermal heat pumps with ground collectors or probes and significantly more efficiently than air source heat pumps.
Our technology can be the solution for efficient and climate-friendly heating and cooling, especially in urban areas where groundworks are not always possible and air source heat pumps would be too noisy. The existing building stock, which needs to be gradually refurbished to be climate-neutral, offers great potential here.
What estimations do you have for 2024?
A.S: We see an opportunity for PVT to establish itself as a third heat source for heat pumps alongside ground source and air source. Although the heat pump market could be doing better than it is at the moment, Consolar is experiencing good growth and has a full order book.
The solutions have now been tried and tested thousands of times and have become economical. It is primarily a question of awareness and trained installation capacities as to how quickly vulnerable energy concepts based on centralised supply structures are replaced by decentralised, intelligent and economical solutions using renewable energies.