On April 2, 2025, we visited Phoenix Contact Deutschland GmbH in neighboring East Westphalia-Lippe to find out more about how sustainability is consistently becoming part of everyday life there with an automated energy management system.
The excursion in beautiful spring weather took colleagues from companies of the South Westphalian Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Hagen as well as managers from our NIRO member companies to Bad Pyrmont and Blomberg.
We met at Phoenix Contact and gained impressive insights into a company for which sustainability means living and acting: innovative products and technological solutions from the family-owned company contribute to sustainable management and actively help shape a future worth living. Phoenix Contact products connect power or data flows and distribute or control them. They are used in automated processes in production plants, in the field of renewable energies, in infrastructure or for complex device connections.
We started our excursion in Bad Pyrmont. There, Frank Schröder, Director of efficient Technologies Corporate Facility Management, and René Füchtjohann, Strategy & Decarbonization, introduced us to the comprehensive automated energy management system used at Phoenix Contact. Sector coupling optimizes energy costs.
Digital twins of the buildings are combined into a virtual model that uses real-time data to optimize energy consumption and achieve net-zero targets. The new currency in Phoenix Contact’s property operations and energy management isCO2.
Frank Schröder used his smartphone app to switch on the lighting in the conference room and operate the blinds. The dashboard provides detailed, real-time consumption data for each individual machine in production. If someone forgets to switch off the lights after a meeting, no problem: the system detects whether there is anyone else in the room. If it is empty, the heating shuts down and the lights and projector are switched off. The consumption of the coffee machines could be called up, as could the use of the sofa in the anteroom or the number of times the elevator had been used. This is what building technology can look like if it is consistently controlled and automated in order to save energy costs.
After the impressive presentation of intelligent and networked building technology, we were given a short tour of the production facility.
The second stop on our excursion took us to neighboring Blomberg.
Phoenix Contact has built the All Electric Society Park (AES Park) there. Covering around 8,000 square meters, the public outdoor exhibition brings the energy transition to life for everyone. Whether the use of different types of solar modules, a wind tree or a wind nacelle: these applications clearly illustrate the many ways in which renewable energy can be generated. Their conversion, storage and optimal distribution are the basis for a sustainable use of energy that shows the vision of an all-electric society.
The park is open daily from 7 am to 9 pm. Guided tours are also possible.
NIRO would like to thank Frank Schröder and René Füchtjohann from Phoenix Contact for their extremely impressive and inspiring impressions. Thank you for your time and for sharing your knowledge and experience with us! You opened a door for us with a view into a future world that shows how we can use energy sustainably in the buildings in which we work and live – automated, networked and electrified.
