MEGA collectors for Germany’s largest process heat solar thermal system

Last year, the AKOTEC production company secured a large order for the production of solar collectors, with an order volume of around one million euros. These are destined for the gas pressure regulation station of ONTRAS Gastransport in Kienbaum. Here, large amounts of gas, including from the EUGAL pipeline, are received and must be pre-heated. EnerSolve from Kassel will deliver Germany’s largest process heat solar thermal system to Kienbaum for this purpose.

The required 165 collector segments, which will be assembled on-site in Kienbaum into a large collector, have already been produced.

In December, EnerSolve CEO Roland Heinzen, along with ONTRAS project manager Frank Jachmann and Martin Scholich from the construction supervisor FRIEDRICH VORWERK SE & Co. KG, visited the AKOTEC production site in Angermünde. During this visit, the factory acceptance of the produced MEGA collector segments took place.

In Kienbaum, on 4,000 square meters of installation space, the collector segments produced in Angermünde, with a total collector area of 2,145 square meters, will provide the gas pressure regulation station of the gas pipeline operator with green energy in the future.

EnerSolve has already implemented half a dozen such systems for gas pressure regulation stations. The concept was awarded the Hessian State Prize for Energy in 2018.

The MEGA collectors supplied by AKOTEC, with a service life of about 40 years and no maintenance required, are specially designed for large systems like this one. In the MEGA collector, the pipeline is integrated into the collector.

This construction reduces heat loss and saves installation costs, as the segments are fully pre-produced in Angermünde. For this innovative technology, AKOTEC received the Berlin-Brandenburg Innovation Award in 2019.

The system is expected to be operational this year and will feed green heat CO2-free into the gas pressure station in Kienbaum. This will enable ONTRAS to save up to 160,000 cubic meters of gas and 370,000 kg of CO2 annually.

The construction of this and other large systems shows that the large-scale use of solar thermal energy is gaining importance across Europe. EnerSolve and AKOTEC have already realized joint projects. At the Rothaus Brewery in Baden-Württemberg, EnerSolve built its largest process heat solar thermal system to date, also using collectors.