Clear as Day – Full Power for the Solar Industry

September 2010Solar technology is a growth market in both the business and private sectors that will come nowhere near exhausting its potential for a long time to come. Forward-looking, high-quality solutions like solar tubing and tanks make ContiTech a good partner when it’s a matter of versatilely harnessing renewable energies.

Dozens of new-born piglets are cuddled up close to one another, fast asleep. When they get tired, these little things tend to nestle together tightly so that they can feel the warmth and proximity of the brood. The younglings love to snuggle and breeders are now taking this quite seriously in the interest of promoting both the well-being and healthy growth of the piglets. They are, heating the stalls with a underfloor network of warm-water-filled tubes.

Underfloor heating for pigs? Haven’t cattle breeding farms already long had to resort to finite raw materials to satisfy a virtually unquenchable demand for energy? Yes indeed, and this is, moreover, reason enough to ponder more economical alternatives that require fewer natural resources. The sun is one possibility. As a virtually inexhaustible source of energy, it can be exploited to save large amounts of fossil fuel. In the process one would be making a sustained contribution toward maintaining a healthy environment. “We are talking here about huge farm surfaces capable of heating a hefty 17,000 liters of water,” reports Willi Emde, head of the Industrial Hose segment at ContiTech Fluid Technology. “These are dimensions of an imposing magnitude. The average warm water tank for a normal four-person household holds 400 liters at most.” The technology is as simple as it is effective.

The expansive roofs of farm buildings serve as solar collectors. In collaboration with BEMO, a roof system manufacturer based in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, ContiTech Fluid Technology has developed a product that keeps piglets warm and cozy more or less solely by means of solar energy. Special, high-quality solar tubes built into the roof absorb as much solar energy as possible and convey it to a tank in which water is heated. The water flows through the tubes under the piglets stalls at a well-tempered 45° C. But it is not just the young animals that enjoy the advantages of this naturally generated underfloor heating. The pig breeder and the breeder's family also uses the warm water – for heating purposes as well as in the bathroom and kitchen. Solar technology is a growth market in both the business and private sectors that will come nowhere near exhausting its potential for a long time to come. The motivation for turning to solar energy and the benefits of doing so are clear: on the one hand, it offers the promise of calculable energy prices over the long run and a heightened awareness of eco-friendly energy forms; on the other hand, dwindling fossil resources make it necessary to come up with some cogent solutions. Many energy consumers are thus already banking on solar power.

And so ContiTech is likewise active in the domain of solar energy. With an enormous clout felt well beyond the limits of its own business units, ContiTech is an ideal partner to this industry. It´s solar competence extends “from elastomer head to toe“, from the roof of the house right down to the cellar. Clever elastomer solar product solutions from ContiTech are to be found even in the basement – in the form of novel solar tanks.

Solar collectors and hot water tanks that give off solar heat when needed by the residents are a practical and eco-friendly solution that have already proven themselves in many households. So far, though, there has been a catch to this optimistic scenario. Installing the large tank required in the basement of an existing building very often poses a problem. The tanks hold service water as the energy storage medium, so containers made of stainless steel or steel coated with enamel are generally used. In the past this was the only way to ensure completely hygienic conditions. Elaborating on the structural requirements, Alexander Papadimitriou, head of the Industrial Products segment at ContiTech, notes “The heavy steel tanks with a holding capacity of up to 2,000 liters frequently force homeowners opting for solar energy to resort to artifices of one kind or another to get the gigantic hot water accumulators to where they want them.”

FSAVE, a young company based in Kassel, Germany, came up with an excellent idea for dealing with this problem: a flexible tank adaptable to any spatial conditions whatsoever. The FLEXSAVE solar tank is assembled right on-site with individual tailor-made parts. This uncomplicated solution gets around the problem of narrow stairs or tight doorways. A special material from ContiTech Elastomer Coatings reliably ensures that heat can be accumulated in the solar tank. “In ContiTech we have found a partner whose material expertise and technical know-how contribute to realization of our innovative idea,” rejoice Claudius Wilhelms and Roland Heinzen, general managers of FSAVE Solar Technik GmbH. The members of the Intersolar Awards 2010 jury were evidently also quite taken with this system. They singled out FSAVE with a citation in the solar thermal category.

Involved at a very early point in these young and innovative ideas, ContiTech was able to input its expertise. “In hooking up with the solar industry, we are plunging into unchartered territory. We are, nonetheless, convinced that our elastomer materials and sophisticated manufacturing and development know-how ideally suit us for a role as partner to the aspiring solar industry – across all borders," Willi Emde says without a shadow of a doubt in his voice.