A sustainable future with resource conservation: the production site of the German solar inverter manufacturer SMA Solar Technology AG at Sandershäuser Berg in Niestetal, near the German city of Kassel, will comply with the highest environmental standards. Drees & Sommer SE, which specializes in construction and real estate consulting, has been providing support with this project to SMA over the past few months, conducting a pre-check for the sustainability certification of the site in accordance with the prerequisites of the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB), and a basic evaluation. Facility management experts have been involved in the planning and construction processes and project managers have provided advice on building services engineering (MEP) for the new factory building. Drees & Sommer’s consulting work for SMA included also the development of a digital strategy
Drees & Sommer’s sustainability experts are supporting SMA in paving the way for a sustainable production site: The project team initially conducted a pre-check in close consultation with the client to determine whether it was possible to obtain certification for the Niestetal location. This involved gathering sustainability parameters such as degrees of soil sealing, use of renewable energies, and data relating to transport links and mobility. They then evaluated the data collected using the German Sustainable Building Council framework.
“In the past, the Sustainable Building Council has only certified buildings – not entire industrial sites including the outdoor spaces. This could make the SMA production facility a pilot project of its kind when it has received an award from the Sustainable Building Council,” explains Tanja Sprenger, DGNB auditor and expert for sustainable district development at Drees & Sommer. The team drew up a detailed action plan to build a sustainable future for the SMA site as a whole. Drees & Sommer is also overseeing the process of obtaining DGNB Buildings in Use certification for an existing building.
Construction of Extension to House Gigawatt Factory
Construction of the new production facility started in April 2023. The area being built on is part of an approx. 47,000 square-meter unroofed storage area to the eastern side of SMA’s existing manufacturing building. Here, on 17,700 square meters of space, construction is underway for a gigawatt factory, where the first inverters for large-scale photovoltaic plants and solar power plants will be produced from the end of 2024. This will double the annual production capacities from the current level of around 21 gigawatts to almost 40 gigawatts. From the beginning of 2025, innovative photovoltaic system solutions for large-scale plants will be supplied from Niestetal to every corner of the world.
The design of the new building is environmentally friendly. The gigawatt factory will be equipped with a photovoltaic system and built according to the environment and climate-friendly German energy efficiency standard KfW 40 EE. In addition, a DGNB Gold certification is planned for the new extension building. Solar energy is an important element of the building’s future energy supply. Sustainability and environmentally friendly strategies are also at the forefront of the design of building services engineering (MEP) and the facility management for the new factory building. “Our experience has shown that putting thought into later facility management processes at an early stage, along with energy-efficient buildings and facilities, are the key to making sites fit for the future,” comments Drees & Sommer’s facility management specialist Dirk Daube. The services provided by his team included facility management related consulting during the planning and construction phases of the project. The experts prepared an operating costs forecast and an optimal cleaning and waste concept for the new building.