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SGL provides energy-saving solutions for Chinese market

By Chen Qide (China Daily Shanghai Bureau)
Updated: 2010-11-10 21:09

SHANGHAI - SGL, the world's leading manufacturer of carbon-based products, is pushing forward its expansion plan in China by launching a new energy-saving graphite material.

The new material Ecophit, made from expanded graphite, ensures optimum distribution of heat and can greatly improve the performance of existing systems, said Guenter Hermann, managing director of SGL Group China.

Insiders said facing the rising cost of energy and the climate change, building contractors, architects and urban planners are seeking for all kinds of more effective and energy-saving alternatives to achieve stable and pleasant heating and cooling solutions.

"China is a great potential market for energy-saving materials, for it is making every effort to gear up its low-carbon economy," Hermann said.

He said green building materials have become essential and materials capable of fast and even heat distribution can significantly enhance the efficiency of surface heating and cooling system.

Insiders said with the expansion of urban scale, energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission have been gaining increasing attention from environmentalists.

In addition to enhancing the awareness of citizens for environmental protection, the application of green materials in infrastructure construction and public facilities can help to save the energy consumption significantly.

"Thanks to carbon's unique properties, carbon products can provide solutions to solving the rising challenge of urban life in Megacities," he said. "As a result, carbon materials are becoming more active in the low-carbon life."

Johan Borrey, managing director of SGL Group China, said its "green" applications reached 60 percent of the group's global sales of 1.27 billion euros last year.

Asia is SGL's major market with its share in the global sales rising from 13 percent in 2005 to 26 percent in 2009, while its share in Europe decreasing from 36 percent in 2005 to last year's 28 percent, Borrey said.

"The future of our company will be decided in Asia, especially China," said SGL CEO Robert Koehler at a speech delivered at Fudan University in 2010.

Since it entered the Chinese market in 1998, SGL has established five legal entities whose product portfolio and sales cover all the global business units.

"China took up half of SGL's sales at the Asian market to reach 13 percent which will grow rapidly in the next several years," Borrey said.

"China's rapid development is quite exciting and already has a good start in its low-carbon economy, thus creating an opportunity for SGL to share its products, expertise and best solutions with Chinese clients and partners," he said.