With a struggling economy and the Chinese manufacturing industry growing by the day, Klaus Bergmann – Managing Director of renewable energy consultants BBB Umwelttechnik – explains why excellence at the planning stage has never been more crucial.
PES: Welcome back to PES. Can you tell us about how the company’s evolved since we last spoke, and what your on-the-ground assessment is of the state of the market?
Klaus Bergmann: During the last six months we kept on extending our team and our technological potential, in order to be able to meet the demands of the wind energy market which is still growing rapidly, particularly on the German market, which in the field of renewable energies is a kind of showroom for international trends. There is a new dynamic since the Fukushima disaster, and the subsequent withdrawal of the German government from the nuclear energy programme.
PES: BBB is a technical consulting firm with a wide variety of services. In which business field do you feel the new impetus?
KB: Mainly in the field of project development. We have seen that a lot of smaller public utilities are beginning to develop onshore wind energy projects of their own. They want to strengthen their portfolio of renewable energy sources and own generation facilities but are not willing to pay the actual prices for third party developments anymore, as these prices are reaching levels never seen before due to the over demand by strategic investors. As BBB offers the whole range of development services; from the feasibility study to project implementation we are often considered to be the ideal partner for their business expansion strategies.
