SCHAUFLER Academy’s energy concept receives DEUTSCHER TGA-AWARD

• Highly efficient thanks to an innovative energy concept
• More than just a training centre – the multifunctional building
• Practical training courses

Berlin/Rottenburg/Sindelfingen, May 2, 2016. The energy concept of BITZER’s SCHAUFLER Academy received the DEUTSCHER TGA-AWARD 2016 in the New Building category. The international training centre of the specialist for refrigeration compressors is located in Rottenburg-Ergenzingen on the grounds of the BITZER competence centre for screw compressors.

The award ceremony was held in CCI Berlin’s Ludwig Erhard building on 12 April during the Berliner ENERGIETAGE conference. The 16-member specialist jury for technical building services awarded the specialist team of planners commissioned by BITZER for the SCHAUFLER Academy’s progressive energy concept. Klaus Rauer and Christian Bressel of the Rauer Planung engineering firm accepted the award. ‘We couldn’t be happier about the award. The SCHAUFLER Academy can serve as an example to many other projects, as this involved some major energy challenges that had to be overcome both economically and practically,’ says Rauer.

BITZER congratulated its project partners for the award. ‘We’ve always set great store by the efficiency of our compressors and condensing units. After all, lower energy consumption improves the environmental balance and reduces life cycle costs,’ says Dr Armin Walz, Head of Application Engineering at BITZER. ‘True to this principle, BITZER and its construction partners developed an energy concept that combines flexibility in terms of building utilisation with the responsible use of resources and minimal energy consumption.’

The SCHAUFLER Academy building and the building technology concept were developed under the direction of the BFK Plan GmbH planning office with the support of the IB Rauer specialist planning office and the design architects of BFK Architekten, in close coordination with BITZER.

Modern energy concept

At the SCHAUFLER Academy, heating and cooling are provided by efficient heat pumps, underground latent storage (ice storage), a solar thermal collector and a combined heat and power system. ‘This concept underlines our commitment to developing products for sustainable energy use and climate protection. As such, the Academy allows us to present systems featuring BITZER components to our customers in a direct way,’ says Volker Stamer, Director of the SCHAUFLER Academy. The ice storage system collects temporarily available cooling and thermal energy, which can be retrieved when it is required. This enables BITZER to balance the fluctuating energy supply, while also using renewable sources of energy for space heating and cooling.

‘We installed a heat pump with two BITZER ORBIT 8 scroll compressors of the type GSD80295 for the building heating and cooling. With their high efficiency at full-load and part-load and the wide application limits for which they’re known, these compressors are ideal for heat pump systems with reverse cycling,’ emphasises Dr Armin Walz. The integrated heat pump is responsible for a large part of the building heating and covers the base load of the building cooling. A liquid chiller is also responsible for the mechanical cooling of demonstration systems and covering peak loads in building cooling. By using BITZER’s CSVH26-200Y compact screw compressor with integrated frequency inverter, the cooling system can be infinitely adjusted between 16 and 100 per cent and the entire system used very efficiently. The liquid chiller also features heat recovery to support building heating.

Multifunctional building

BITZER had planned for the SCHAUFLER Academy to be a multifunctional building from the very beginning. The new three-storey building is ten metres tall and has five rooms for theoretical and three areas for practical training. Three training rooms can also be connected to form a large lecture hall that can accommodate up to 120 people. With a gross floor area of 3,400 square metres, the building can host several training courses at the same time. In addition, the SCHAUFLER Academy contains office space for the training staff and a cafeteria with seating for 110 people. Furthermore, with its appealing architectural design, the SCHAUFLER Academy serves as a striking new reception building for the production facility at Rottenburg-Ergenzingen, the international competence centre for BITZER screw compressors.

Popular training courses

‘Even before the SCHAUFLER Academy opened its doors, more than 150 training courses on CO2 applications had already been offered in Rottenburg-Ergenzingen. Our training courses are in high demand,’ explains Volker Stamer, Director of the SCHAUFLER Academy. ‘Technological progress and new regulations are steadily increasing the demand for well-trained specialist personnel. We accommodate this demand with our international training centre and, in addition to our CO2 seminars, also offer courses, for instance, on ammonia applications and inverter compressors. We also offer hydrocarbon training courses, which tend to focus on the use of propane in refrigeration and air conditioning systems.’ When it comes to teaching the training courses, BITZER relies on the potential of its employees, primarily from application engineering and, to a lesser degree, from sales and product management. The benefit is that the trainers are well acquainted with the latest concerns affecting customers and can address users’ issues and challenges and offer solutions and the right assistance. ‘With the SCHAUFLER Academy, we’re demonstrating that we at BITZER not only talk about the issue of lifelong learning and training, but actively pursue it too. We’d also like to intensify the Academy’s contact with schools and universities as well as promote an interest in technology among young people,’ emphasises Stamer.

The DEUTSCHER TGA-AWARD is presented by HUSS-MEDIEN GmbH, which as a TGA specialist publishing house publishes the Moderne Gebäudetechnik magazine.

The dates of individual training courses offered at the SCHAUFLER Academy can be found at the following link:

Seminars