| Bank UmweltBank |
| Client Naturstrom AG |
| Location Merkendorf, Germany |
Idyllically situated in the Franconian Lake District is the small town of Merkendorf. With 2,800 inhabitants, the town not only has an impressive historic city centre, it also takes a progressive and environmentally friendly approach to the way it thinks and acts with regards to power generation. When Dr. Thomas E. Banning, CEO of Naturstrom AG, asked the town’s mayor what he thought about working together to construct a solar park, he immediately agreed. The citizens of Merkendorf also endorsed the idea.
Naturstrom AG chose UmweltBank as a strong partner to finance this sustainable energy project. Naturstrom AG and UmweltBank have worked together for many years on various projects for the sustainable and environmentally friendly production of renewable energies. This successful collaboration was continued once again with the solar park in Merkendorf – the solution-oriented cooperation with UmweltBank helped to ensure the rapid and successful construction of the solar park, a job that took just 18 months to complete. Here, electricity is now generated from sunlight. This partnership has taken one step further towards achieving a sustainable energy revolution. Even the sheep in Merkendorf’s solar park feel comfortable which are often spotted grazing happily among the solar panels.
Naturstrom AG not only intends to sell electricity to end customers, i.e. to conduct trading business, the company has set itself the goal of sparking a sustainable energy revolution by connecting as many new plants as possible to the grid. In this regard, Thomas Banning places particular emphasis on the people living in the immediate vicinity of the environmental projects. There is no point in doing this alone – the basic idea is always to work as close as possible with the people who live in the area and who are really affected by the project.