The Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labour and Energy of Brandenburg, along with the Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Enterprises of Berlin, has again awarded the Innovation Prize Berlin-Brandenburg this year.
The 17-member jury had to select 10 nominated companies from a record total of 206 applications. The applications came from all industries and offered a vast range of innovations.
Last Friday evening in Potsdam, five companies were honored for their outstanding products and solutions. In addition to the prestigious award, the winners also received a prize money of 10,000 euros.
AKOTEC from Angermünde is also among the five winners and impressed the jury with its unique large collector for feeding solar heat into district heating networks – the MEGA Collector.
The MEGA Collector is a large collector designed for district heating networks. The pipeline is integrated into the collector. This construction significantly reduces waste heat losses and saves on installation costs.
A collector can be up to 500 m² in size and is made from segments produced serially in Angermünde. These segments are connected on-site to form a large collector. Installing a 500 m² collector takes 3 hours.
Due to the Energy Saving Ordinance (EnEV 2016), achieving a good primary energy factor in the generation of district heating is becoming increasingly important. This has created a significant demand for solar thermal energy and its potential among district heating network operators. The highly developed technology can offer a strong solution approach. Solar feeding into district heating networks leads to significant CO₂ reduction.
The annual overall savings potential through solar thermal energy is approximately 45,000 GWh of heat and about 315 million tons of CO₂.
The award-winning MEGA collector has already been used in four projects. Most recently, 4 segments were installed at Blumberger Mühle. Further large-scale projects are in the pipeline, and the demand for solar thermal large collectors is steadily increasing.
Funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labor and Energy with funds from the European Social Fund and the State of Brandenburg. Learn more.
