Announcement: Zahna-Fliesen GmbH inaugurates a new photovoltaic plant
For us at Zahna-Fliesen GmbH, last Friday marked a milestone in our company history. We had the honour of welcoming Minister-President Reiner Haseloff (CDU) as a guest. Even more significant was the step our long-established company took towards securing its future. On that day our brand-new photovoltaic plant, installed on our roofs in recent weeks, was officially commissioned.
Almost every one of our roofs is now covered with solar modules. In total we equipped 51 roofs with solar modules, 30 of which were refurbished over a construction period of about two years. This substantial investment in renewable energy will help us cover our daytime electricity demand and reduce our ecological footprint.
During a plant tour, Claire Schnebelen from company management emphasised that our photovoltaic plant already covers a considerable share of our electricity demand. Of course that power is not enough to run our kilns, which still operate on gas. We are working intensively on alternatives to gas in order to become more sustainable in that area as well.
Our owner, Maxime Fischer, stressed the importance of this project for the town of Zahna-Elster, for Saxony-Anhalt and for the energy transition. He highlighted the challenges we faced on the market, including rising energy costs and a decline in construction orders. “Energy costs alone accounted for more than 30 percent of our total costs,” Maxime Fischer emphasised.
Maxime Fischer also underlined the need for a joint energy policy in Europe to support industry. “A change of thinking was required, and we belonged to a generation that cares about the environment,” Fischer said. That decision was already taken in 2020, before the green wave gathered pace. Fischer made no secret of the fact that some competitors had failed to adapt in time and had disappeared from the market.
The municipal administration under Mayor Peter Müller (Freie Wähler) played a decisive role in making the project possible. “We had contact with VEA (association for promoting energy-autonomous municipalities and institutions) and passed that contact on to Maxime Fischer,” Peter Müller reported. Dietmar Horn, president of VEA, then brought company management together with the firm Sonnenexpert.
Under optimal conditions the photovoltaic plant on the roofs of Zahna-Fliesen GmbH can generate 4.5 megawatts peak. Investor Gunnar Geske put expected annual electricity production at just under four megawatt hours. In total a little more than 11,000 solar modules were installed on a roof area of 31,000 square metres, making this one of the largest rooftop plants in Saxony-Anhalt.
Minister-President Reiner Haseloff showed understanding for our appeals and stressed the importance of ending the energy-price debate so that companies can plan long term. He referred to a conference of the state energy ministers with Federal Minister Robert Habeck, responsible for energy, still to take place in September 2023 in Wernigerode, where such questions were on the agenda.
Haseloff acknowledged our commitment to the company in Zahna and stressed how important it is that the tile works continues to exist.
Stay with us as we continue to work on sustainable solutions to minimise our environmental impact while offering high-quality tiles from Zahna.
