SCHOTT Solar Sends a Signal with its New Headquarters in Mainz
• 100
modern working places
• Opening ceremony involving Minister President Beck
and Mayor Beutel
Mainz, August 23, 2010 – SCHOTT Solar AG will now be writing
a new chapter in the history of the company. Today,
the solar company inaugurated its new headquarters together with around
100 invited guests, including the Minister President of Rhineland-Palatinate,
Kurt Beck, and the Mayor of Mainz, Jens Beutel. In the future, SCHOTT Solar will be shaping its
destiny from out of Hattenbergstraße in Mainz, in close
proximity to its parent company, SCHOTT AG. “By arranging for
our solar subsidiary to move from Alzenau in Lower Franconia to Mainz, we are giving
them more room to grow. We
have also improved SCHOTT
Solar AG’s ability to network with our
functions at corporate headquarters and, even more, the research
facilities we have here, like
the Otto Schott Research Center,” the
Chairman of the Board of Management of SCHOTT AG,
Prof. Udo Ungeheuer, explained. He also noted that SCHOTT has invested almost 500 million euros in its site in Mainz between 2000 and 2010. The opening of the new headquarters sends a clear statement
in two different ways. At
SCHOTT Solar, the signals are clearly pointing
in the direction of growth
at the international level.
Furthermore, the group’s new headquarters
demonstrates the possibilities that solar power offers for responsible
construction.
“We are looking
to benefit from the global growth of the solar industry to a greater extent than the
market as a whole. Significantly increasing our production volumes is the
key to achieving this objective,” Dr. Martin Heming, Chairman of the Board of
Management of SCHOTT Solar, said. The
cornerstone has now been laid. According
to Heming, the company has lowered its costs in recent
months and thus formed the foundation
for achieving its objective. “The next step
was for us to move to Mainz,” he added. Approximately 100 employees who mainly
work in management, sales and marketing, will now be working
out of the company’s new headquarters. “By leaving Alzenau, on the other hand, we created enough
room for us to expand this
site into a competence center for cell technology and manufacturing,” Heming emphasized and added, “We are well prepared
for the future.”
The
company’s new headquarters are a good example of the role that solar power in general and products from SCHOTT and SCHOTT Solar, in particular,
will play in the future.
“This building strictly
follows the sun,” says
architect Wolfgang Marx in describing
the creative idea behind it. The floor plan resembles an equilateral triangle. The semi-round
façade that faces the street
has around 1,000 square meters of glass hanging in front of it. This truly gives it
a high recognition value. Thanks to how it
faces south, the façade is
also ideally suited for making use
of photovoltaic technology. 82 ASI THRU modules from SCHOTT Solar were integrated into it and generate
electricity. These modules are semi-transparent, which means that they
allow a certain amount of daylight to pass through, yet, at the same time, offer protection against thermal overheating of the entrance hall as a result of direct sunlight. The working
places and conference rooms are located
on the two sides of the building
that face in the opposite direction as the sun.
Yet
another 26-kW solar installation
on the roof also generates electricity. Here, a large display located in the entrance hall shows the current yield
from both systems.
In addition to these solar components, still other products from SCHOTT were put to use
inside the building. In the entrance hall, the anti-reflective glass Amiran offers a clear view of the
outside from inside the building
and vice versa. And the blue, solid-colored
flat glass Imera used for the
elevators also glows in the floor. Pyran
fire resistant glass prevents a fire from spreading
beyond the entrance hall or from the galleries
located at the middle of the building
into the office areas.
Quite a few companies from Mainz and the surrounding area also helped build SCHOTT Solar’s new headquarters
that took 18 months to construct.
Overview of SCHOTT Solar’s new
headquarters:
• 5
floors
• Gross floor space:
4,000 m²
• Glass
façade: 940 m², 290 m² of which
consists of ASI modules
• Photovoltaic system on the roof: 26 kW
• Photovoltaic system in the façade: 10 kW
• 310
tons of steel
• 3.200
cubic meters of concrete
• 67
reinforced concrete piles all the way down to the foundation, ten 10 meters down
