After a long break, people around the world will again take to the streets at Fridays for Future protests for more climate protection tomorrow. This is very much a good thing. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the climate crisis must not be allowed to slip out of view for politics, business and society. On the contrary: the coronavirus crisis has shown what is possible when all players pull together. We must now use this momentum to stop climate change.
SMA posted a marked year-on-year improvement in sales and earnings in the first half of the year. The Managing Board continues to stand by its targets for the year. We put three questions about this to Chief Executive Officer Jürgen Reinert.
Bernhard Voll wants nothing less than to make a lasting improvement to people’s lives with PV systems. So it’s useful that the SMA expert for PV power plants has a lot of experience and knows all the pitfalls in the implementation of PV projects. Besides this, he is calling for a look at other fields of application to make more diverse use of inverters. He already has some specific ideas.
Thanks to the Fridays for Future movement, sustainability and climate protection are at the top of the political and corporate agenda worldwide. Matthias Schäpers is extremely pleased about this. After all, sustainability is a topic close to his heart – and not only since he started as a sustainability manager at SMA, advancing the company’s sustainability strategy. What annoys him, on the other hand, is companies that only pretend to be sustainable. He knows exactly how to recognize them.
The world’s leading trade fair for the solar industry, Intersolar Europe, had to be cancelled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. With the new event format "Let's talk energy! POWER ON", SMA offered its customers and partners a digital alternative to the Munich trade fair in June. In the livestream, presenter Kimsy von Reischach and top-class experts provided interactive discussions and exciting glimpses behind the SMA scenes.
Stand-alone grids can be found all around the world — at the South Pole and in East Asia, deep in the jungle and in idyllic holiday regions. Solar stand-alone grids provide a stable electricity supply far away from utility grids – often even 100% from renewable energy. They form the basis for sustainable economic development. Isabel Ballesteros-Sanchez has already implemented countless off-grid projects for SMA and inspires optimism for a world full of off-grid systems.
Digital traffic on the Internet consumes as much CO2 as air traffic. I was very surprised to learn this. After all, we are always hearing that digitalization is helping us use resources more efficiently. So is digitalization more sustainable or not?
#Optimize energy yields in PV systems intelligently, but safely. When it comes to additional module electronics versus lean system design with modern inverter technology, Hannes Knopf is in his element. The expert in modern string inverter features knows why module optimizers are a safety risk. He explains how operators and installers can benefit from greater efficiency and safety over the entire system life with the integrated SMA ShadeFix software.
#suddenlyremote: Due to the coronavirus pandemic, most SMA employees are working from home. New territory for many, a challenge for everybody. But also an opportunity to learn something new and to eliminate prejudices. Julia Wieland, an expert in digital collaboration, shares her ideas on how collaborating also works well in digital form.
The Coronavirus poses a big challenge for people and the economy around the world. It’s on each and every one of us now to observe the necessary precautions and in particular to keep our distance from each other. At the same time, however, we should all stand together in order to minimize the impact of the virus and contain its spread.