In the summer of the previous year, there were “sparks”: The managing directors of the Seekirchner heating expert Windhager and the Upper Austrian heat pump specialist M-Tec met for the first time. At the end of 2021, the two companies signed a cooperation agreement. In the future, the companies will combine their strengths in production and development: As reported, Windhager is building a new 15,000 square meter plant in Pinsdorf (district of Gmunden) for a “high double-digit million amount”. This location (the groundbreaking is planned for May) will also be used by M-Tec for production and logistics from completion in 2023. 100 additional jobs will be created.
Windhager managing directors Stefan Gubi and Roman Seitweger said at an online press conference today, Thursday, that they are already leaders in the fields of renewable energies and above all biomass: “What has been missing so far are the heat pumps.” On these, in turn, M -Tec specializes: “We are running out of capacity,” said managing director Peter Huemer: 1,500 heat pumps of all types were produced at M-Tec last year. It should be up to 10,000 units a year after the completion of the plant in 2023. The production of heat pumps for Windhager in the M-Tec factory will start in the second quarter of this year.
The group employs 130 people, and sales in 2021 were 9.6 million euros. At Windhager, 550 employees recently achieved sales of more than 100 million euros. Both companies remain independent, as was emphasized: there are no social entanglements.
“Massive catch-up potential”
1.6 million heat pumps were sold in Europe in 2020. In Austria there were 32,000. The market for renewable energies is one of the future fields, it was said yesterday: “There is massive catch-up potential in Italy and Germany, for example,” said Gubi. Windhager’s export rate is 70 percent. According to Huemer, demand is also increasing in the USA. Problems, however, are bottlenecks in the procurement of materials and the lack of suitable specialists: “The energy transition will only succeed if someone is there to implement it.”
Source: Nachrichten
