Thanks to many years of experience in engineering and development within the challenging,
high quality level automotive industry, Hirschmann Automotive was able to raise the standard of connection technology for solar modules to a new level. As a result, they set new global standards of cost/benefit, reliability, and differentiation ability. We spoke once
again to the company’s Günter Arens.
PES: Welcome back to PES. How has business been since we last spoke?
Günter Arens: When we started our business in the European market, we were met by many challenges including insolvencies in our customer base due to a declining European market volume and strong competition from overseas. Our competitors, as well as other companies along the solar module value chain, are also experiencing these challenges. We are managing these changes well, leveraging our product strengths and expanding our global reach.
PES: The company was primed to enter the Asian market last year. How is this progressing?
GA: We have established our production site in Nantong according to our plan in 2014. In parallel, we have employed and trained our sales force on our new product portfolio. First customer meetings have been taking place with promising results.
PES: How has your new line of Basic Fresh products been received?
GA: The true value of our Fresh Product Portfolio to our customers has become very clear. Due to the high volumes of existing competitive PV-installations in the market, the statistics on the number and type of quality complaints is getting more and more reliable, revealing that the true cost of ownership is heavily dependent on the quality of the selected components used in module production. We used our field study, covering a 15 year period, coupled with our more then 50 years of experience in connectivity design for demanding applications, as the foundation for our Fresh product portfolio specification and design.
PES: Will you be expanding your product portfolio further still this year?
GA: This year we will be focussing on the customer specific developments we have on order. Those developments are based on our core product designs but need to be adjusted to customers’ specific requirements.
