The newest energy efficient KACO facility is able to produce 1.1 GW of climate friendly inverters.

KACO new energy has moved into its new headquarters. The newest addition to the KACO factory facilities will increase the annual capacity of KACO new energy to 1.1 GW of inverters. The energy efficient new building allows KACO to increase the capacity of the CO2-neutral manufacturing process by decreasing the demand for energy throughout the facility.
In addition to energy efficiency measures and the already existing operational KACO PV plants there is now up to 600kWp of PV producing electricity for the KACO facilitates. Therefore, KACO now produces more energy in the summer than it needs to power all company buildings and plants year round.
The heat used by the new building comes from a local biomass heat and power plant and the electricity above what is produced by the KACO PV plants is purchased solely from the electric power company Schoenau (EWS). The EWS produces 95% of the electricity they generate for the power markets by renewables defined as: wind, solar, biomass and micro-hydroelectric. KACO deliberately decided against green electricity from a regional RECS-certificate trade and for using the electricity generated at the EWS, because direct payments to renewable energy generators is the only way to realistically spur the expansion of new renewable energy power plants.
The new KACO headquarters has a thermal conductivity number of K49 which is more than 50 percent below the requirements of the official regulation for saving energy (2007). The office facades and building walls are single elements made from porous concrete which aid in thermal insulation. The foundation and roofing are designed to insulate the building even further. All windows are triple-glazed and the windows of the attic floor include top-of-the-line windows that incorporate krypton gas, which provides incrementally better insulation. The primary energy demand for the new building is 82kW/h per square meter which undercuts the statutory regulations of the year 2007 by around 50%. This includes the highly efficient and renewably powered biomass heat supply from the local heat plant. Low consumption LED lights illuminate the parking lot and “sun blinds” are incorporated in the the building façade. These blinds are
KACO NEW ENERGY increases capacity to 1.1 GW
operate directly by exposure to sun light which also helps to reduce the buildings energy consumption further. The “sun blinds” adjust to sun’s rays and automatically deflect UV rays that would normally overheat the building during the day. Simultaneously, with the inclusion of the “sun blinds” no electric lighting is necessary in the office space. No electric lighting is necessary during the day because the “sun blinds” in the upper third row maintain natural day lighting in office spaces.
As mentioned briefly before, KACO offsets electricity produced from the grid for the new facility with several new PV systems:
113 kW on various roof tops
44kW BiPV facades
33kW SkyCarrier
KACO has built the new facility to react to the increasing demand on the PV market. The 2400 square meter building is big enough to accommodate new manufacturing capability of 600 MW, the executive management, sales, marketing & administrative departments as well as R&D and product management.

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