Energy solutions at GETEC

GETEC is a leading partner to industry and the real estate sector for intelligent, efficient and green energy solutions in Europe. The promise “We have energy for more” is the guiding principle for over 2,400 employees who use excellent engineering know-how, outstanding control competence, high speed of action and proven sustainability expertise to navigate customers through an increasingly complex energy world while reducing their environmental footprint. With 11,500 plants generating more than 5.4 GW of thermal energy, GETEC is active in a total of nine countries from its four regional platforms in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Italy, generating sales of 1.6 billion euros in 2022.

The challenge
First and foremost, Polysun was to initiate an important change process at the subsidiary GETEC Wärme und Effizienz GmbH. GETEC Wärme und Effizienz develops sustainable energy concepts and specializes in projects for the real estate industry. These include residential buildings above a certain size, entire neighborhoods, hospitals and shopping centers. “As we all know, it is becoming increasingly complex to be able to offer our customers suitable solutions,” says Volkmar Börner, the GETEC manager responsible for software selection. In order to maintain an overview at all times for projects of this magnitude, the company, which operates throughout Europe, quickly realized that Excel spreadsheets were not the tool of choice.

“As an energy service provider, our calculation must of course be absolutely reliable: How much electricity from the generation system goes into the heat pump; how much does the customer use directly? How much of it is fed into the grid? How does it interact with the photovoltaic system? In some cases, very complex circuits are created that we have to map with a high degree of accuracy. That’s why it was clear to us: spreadsheets have had their day. We needed an adequate planning tool,” says the expert.

The specific question that GETEC’s managers asked themselves was therefore: “Should we have individual programming or would it be better to purchase suitable software directly? However, it was clear to us that we would have to plan a good two years of development time for individual software. In addition, the cost of maintaining the software solution in the ongoing process should not be underestimated,” says Börner.

The solution
For these reasons, GETEC started a multi-stage software selection process with various software providers, from which Polysun emerged as the tool of choice. The energy company was particularly convinced by the graphical display options, the many variables that can be run through with it, and ultimately the wide range of functions. Börner comments, “Polysun has, for example, achieved a clear first place ahead of all competitors in the hydraulics area, so control strategies can be better displayed.”
Within GETEC Wärme und Effizienz GmbH, Polysun is now used across departments to simulate and plan different variants of power and heat supply, and then to enter them into a coordination process with other departments. A dedicated working group exchanges information on the optimal mapping of GETEC’s standard hydraulics in Polysun and is constantly expanding its internal expertise. “In the process, colleagues create comprehensive simulation variants, which they then coordinate with the various departments and in this process also receive feedback that is very valuable for all of us. We very much appreciate these internal customization options of the Polysun software,” says Volkmar Börner.

The result
As curious as it may sound, the positive consequences of using the software began even before the software solution was actually used. Michael Blümel, project engineer at GETEC Wärme & Effizienz GmbH clarifies: “This approach helps us a lot to enable uniform project simulation and planning.” This means: the first concrete added value of Polysun is that within GETEC there is thus a uniform tool for colleagues, which creates standards, as well as enables a clear controllability and comparability of projects.