Improve the CO2 balance with solar power
For galledia group ag, the largest independent media company in eastern Switzerland, ecological behavior is not an empty promise. A photovoltaic system has been in operation on its company roof in Berneck for a few days now.
Today, every SME has to think about how to make its energy consumption more sustainable. This is also the case for the printing and publishing company Galledia, which, among other things, publishes the specialist publication "Umwelt Perspektiven". "For a few days now, we have been covering part of the electricity consumption there at the Berneck site with solar energy," Daniel Ettlinger, CEO of the Galledia Group, is pleased to report.
When talking about solar technology, a few figures are part of it: Swiss Photovoltaik GmbH has installed 255 photovoltaic (PV) modules on an area of a good 460 m2 on the flat roof of the Galledia company building. The system with monocrystalline solar cells has an efficiency of 20.3 percent. This generates a good 98,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per year, as Willy Langenegger calculated with his Swiss Photovoltaik. The SME in Berneck can use around 85 percent of this itself, while the rest flows into the public grid, for example on Saturdays when the company gate remains closed.
The medium-sized system at Galledia can supply the equivalent of around 20 four-person households with electricity. Thanks to the solar technology, the media company reduces its carbon footprint by almost 59,000 kilograms of CO2 annually.
Photovoltaics: The higher the self-consumption, the more profitable
"On the one hand, we build photovoltaic systems for end customers; on the other hand, we also implement systems that we operate ourselves," says Willy Langenegger, referring to energy contracting. The system on the Galledia roof is just such a solution: the SME with its total of around 330 employees at nine locations has nothing to do with solar technology itself, because it wants to concentrate on its core business. But it has leased the company roof to Swiss Photovoltaik for the PV system. In return, the media company takes over the solar power produced in Berneck and guarantees long-term purchase.
Willy Langenegger likes to draw a comparison between the contracting model and parking spaces: Unused parking spaces could also be rented out. Why not use the "empty" company roof to produce solar power? The buyer of the environmentally friendly energy can be a third party or, as in the case of Galledia, the on-site company itself.
The solar industry is experiencing a boom, and that is no coincidence. Today, a photovoltaic system pays for itself within eight to twelve years, emphasizes the expert, whose company is active throughout German-speaking Switzerland. An investment in photovoltaics is now a financially rewarding business, after all, the prices for PV modules have fallen massively in recent years. And the higher the self-consumption of a PV system, the faster it pays for itself.
Other topics:
- PV systems: lots of subsidies and less bureaucracy
- Demand-side management in the future Swiss electricity system
