With a big summer party meteocontrol GmbH celebrated its 20th anniversary with customers, partners, companions as well as employees and their families. In two decades, the former engineering office for solar technology with initially three engineers has developed into an internationally operating company with over 150 employees at 10 locations worldwide. meteocontrol is a leading supplier of independent PV monitoring systems. Around 45,000 photovoltaic systems with a total output of over 13 gigawatts are currently being monitored by meteocontrol's VCOM monitoring portal.
“IST EnergieCom GmbH" was spun off from “IST Energietechnik”, an engineering office for solar technology founded in 1976. It was entered in the commercial register on 13 July 1998. Four years later, the company was renamed meteocontrol GmbH. The development work at the time already focused on an Internet-based monitoring solution for PV systems. As a pioneer in the industry, meteocontrol launched the "safer'Sun" and "WEB'log" remote monitoring systems and received the Innovation Award of the Photovoltaic Solar Energy Symposium in 2002.
From Local Hero to Global Player
"To survive and grow in the difficult photovoltaic industry for 20 years is in itself a success story", Matthias Haag, CTO of the long-standing customer KACO new energy, praised meteocontrol's success at the ceremony of the anniversary celebration on July 20. "When we set off with meteocontrol back then, it were primarily idealists at work in the PV industry. Our turnover was a minor matter. What counted was to connect PV systems to the grid and promote the clean energy supply. We wanted to make the world a better place. With success - local heroes became global players."
The managing directors and co-founders Martin Schneider and Robert Pfatischer reviewed how eventful the company's 20-year history is. "We developed the first available measurement and analysis program for PV systems for the 1000 roofs program in Germany at the end of the 1990s. We carried out the installation and maintenance ourselves - with an old camper that was both a caravan and a workshop car. Monitoring 150 rooftop systems and retrieving the data centrally via analogue modem or telephone was a real pioneering achievement back then," the managing directors said with a smile.
With the establishment of the first web domain, the digital age began and the online visualization of Messe München's 1 MWp PV system in 1998 was another milestone in the company's history. In 2001, the delivery of ten data loggers constituted a major order – today there are around 4,500 data loggers per year. meteocontrol had reached the 1 GWp mark in monitored capacity in 2009, after another nine years it is now over 13 GWp.
Market professionals with a heart
"It has been 20 very eventful years, with good times but also with hard times. Our perseverance has paid off. This is not least due to the enormous commitment and friendship of our entire team of employees", Schneider and Pfatischer summed up. Human values in cooperation are among meteocontrol's economic success factors - both as a team and with customers and partners. A long-standing companion of the PV specialists praised their efforts in this area during his laudation and awarded the title "excellent market professionals with a heart"
Around the globe - from Santiago de Chile to Tokyo - meteocontrol successfully sells its monitoring solutions and is on site with its employees for installation and commissioning. "And the success story continues: We are expanding with a branch in Australia, the opening is imminent", the managing directors are pleased to announce.
