Giessen offers ideal conditions for commercial and industrial companies - especially when it comes to energy infrastructure. This is also the view of those responsible at Pascoe pharmazeutische Präparate GmbH. Just recently, another of the company's production facilities in Europastrasse went into operation. The required energy is supplied by the Giessen public utility company - in all its forms.
If you want to manufacture something on an industrial scale, you need one thing above all else in addition to suitable production facilities, machines and qualified specialists: energy. Consequently, the decision-makers in such companies do everything they can to find coherent, efficient and future-proof solutions. Especially when they are planning the construction of a new production hall, as is the case with Pascoe pharmazeutische Präparate GmbH. "When it was clear where we were going to build our second Giessen site, we approached the Giessen public utility company directly," recalls Dr Rudolf Unger, Head of Production at Pascoe. In fact, the pharmaceutical company not only needs electricity and heat, but also cooling and natural gas. However, the latter is not used to generate heat as is usually the case. The pharmaceutical manufacturer needs the environmentally friendly energy source to generate the high temperatures required for the production process.
Admittedly, the fact that Stadtwerke Gießen (SWG) has laid connections for electricity, district heating, natural gas and water for an industrial company would not be worth mentioning in itself. But the co-operation between Pascoe and SWG goes much further: the company not only obtains district heating from SWG, but also ready-made cooling. The experts at SWG generate this directly on the company premises in a technical building. And this detail also has a special feature: the recooling plants for the cooling generators are usually located on the roof of the technical building. This keeps the necessary pipework short. "We had to take a different approach with Pascoe," explains Christian Spratte, project manager at SWG. This was because the client had previously wanted the units to be hidden from view. This is why the recoolers, which release the heat extracted from the ambient air into the environment, are located on the roof of the production hall. This also provides more space for the installation. "We laid the connecting pipework to the air conditioning units underground," explains Christian Spratte.
The advantage of contracting
Pascoe originally contacted SWG about the connections for electricity, natural gas and water. "Thanks to the in-depth consultation, we quickly realised that there were other, smarter solutions than doing everything ourselves," says Dr Rudolf Unger. The decision in favour of district heating and cooling contracting was made accordingly quickly. This offers Pascoe a number of advantages: "The costs are much easier to calculate," says Thimo Rieger, SWG customer advisor, speaking from experience. This is because the investments for heating and cooling systems as well as the planning services are reduced to a minimum and are also spread over the term of the contract. Maintenance and servicing are included in the cooling price and are therefore the responsibility of SWG.
In addition, security of supply is increased. The system is directly connected to the SWG network control centre via a data line. "If there is a problem, we can intervene immediately. And because these systems are comparatively slow to react, we may have already dealt with everything before anyone at Pascoe realises that a fault has been reported," adds Thimo Rieger. Irrespective of this, SWG has designed the refrigeration system to be redundant. "This minimises the risk of the refrigeration supply failing," explains Christian Spratte.
Last but not least, the environment also benefits from the pioneering overall energy concept developed by Pascoe and SWG. Thanks to the favourable primary energy factor of Giessen district heating, Pascoe saves considerable amounts ofCO2 compared to its own heating system. In addition, the expertise of the SWG specialists ensures that the refrigeration system achieves an optimum annual degree of utilisation, which in turn goes hand in hand with extremely efficient energy use.
"We are delighted to be working with Stadtwerke Gießen, the local energy supplier," explains Jürgen F. Pascoe, owner and managing director of the company. The co-operation between Pascoe and SWG is an ideal example of what can be achieved when all parties involved discuss possible solutions openly. "Of course, we can't draw any conclusions after such a short time. But because everything went so well during the planning and construction phase, I firmly believe that we made the right decision. The figures speak in favour of using SWG's energy expertise and the resulting services anyway," says a delighted Dr Rudolf Unger.