Outstanding innovations and pioneers of renewable energies awarded Renewable Energy Hamburg Cluster awards “German Renewables Award 2013”

On 14 November 2013, the Renewable Energy Hamburg awarded the “German Renewables Award” in the categories of “Project of the Year”, “Product Innovation of the Year” and “Lifetime Achievement”. An independent jury consisting of eight highly qualified experts from the industry and the scientific community made the decisions. Next year, the “German Renewables Award” is to be presented at the “Wind Energy Hamburg 2014” trade fair on 23 September 2014.

Councillor Dr Bernd Egert from Hamburg’s Ministry of Economics, Transport and Innovation said, “Hamburg is an innovative city. This is also made evident by the great potential that lies within the renewable energy sector. The ‘German Renewables Award’, awarded by the Renewable Energy Hamburg Cluster, honours this innovative industry and encourages further sustainable developments.”

“Project of the Year”

A novel blade design for wind turbines that allows for significant performance increases when retrofitting existing wind turbines secured the “German Renewables Award” in the category of “Project of the Year” for Spitzner Engineers GmbH. With this design, the medium-sized enterprise from Hamburg beat out five other candidates. The engineers calculated the impact of energy-efficient suction of air flows from the root portion's rotor blade surface. According to the jury, the project could provide a “significant contribution towards increasing wind energy’s contribution to power supply”.

Jörg Spitzner, managing director of Spitzner Engineers GmbH, said:
”The foundation of the successful development of our advanced and highly efficient rotor blade was the smooth cooperation between us, the fk-wind: The Institute of Wind energy at the University of Bremerhaven and the BayWa r.e. renewable energy GmbH being responsible for the maintenance and service of rotor blades. Together, we combined suitable aerodynamic profiles with a passive boundary layer control technology, thus improving the efficiency of rotor blades in low-wind locations. We are particularly proud that wind farm operators can extract more power from their wind farms with cost-efficient rotor blade modifications using our product e-ro®.”
www.spitzner-engineers.de/index.php/en/

“Product Innovation of the Year”

A storage system from the Breisgau company ASD Automatic Storage Device GmbH, which can be used to save power generated by solar energy systems, combined heat and power units and wind turbines, received the award in the category “Product Innovation of the Year”. Special features of the storage system: in bad weather, it starts saving power as of 1 watt; the switching time between mains electricity and battery operation is only one millisecond. There were seven other submissions in this category.

Wolfram Walter, Managing Director of ASD, graduate engineer and storage systems expert:
“I developed the ASD solar storage system two years ago after I was unable to find anything on the market that met my requirements for my own home. I would never have guessed that it would turn into such a success story. Today, our storage system is extremely sought after. We have managed to solve various technical challenges that no one in the industry had previously been able to overcome. The award confirms to us that we are on the right path, and I am delighted to have received such recognition.”
www.asd-sonnenspeicher.de

“Lifetime Achievement”

The jury characterised Dr Hartwig Westphalen, the winner of the “German Renewables Award” in the category of “Lifetime Achievement”, as a quiet pioneer with a visionary spirit and volition. In 2001, the physicist established SunEnergy Europe GmbH — which expanded into the European market after 2006 — after a sales career at Stiebel Eltron, Sharp and SolarWorld. Particularly prominent projects include the solar energy systems on the roofs of Hagenbeck Zoo and the new Greenpeace building in HafenCity Hamburg. Westphalen's goal is to use the sun as an inexhaustible source of energy and to achieve a 100% renewable energy supply.

Dr Hartwig Westphalen, managing director of SunEnergy Europe GmbH, said:
“Global development can be made sustainable with energy from sunlight. I invest my own personal energy in a complete transformation towards renewable energies. We have successfully given the impetus by starting with ourselves. In terms of the total economic value added, it is now worthwhile to fully implement this opportunity and to cooperate globally.”
www.sunenergy.eu/en/home.html

https://www.german-renewables.eehh.de/

Contact:
Renewable Energy Hamburg Cluster Agency
Astrid Dose
Phone: 0049-(0)40-694573-12
Email: astrid.dose@eehh.de