What brings you to our head office in Delft, the Netherlands?
“For two main reasons. To acquire technical knowledge about the instruments so we can fully dedicate ourselves to the support of Kipp & Zonen in Romania, and also to meet everyone we’ve spoken to on the phone, or e-mailed with in the past month.”
Can you tell us a bit more about the company Echipot?
“Echipot SRL has been active in the Romanian market for 10 years as a company that imports and sells lightning and overvoltage protection equipment. Six years ago the company also started to do business with meteorological instruments and equipment in order to meet the needs of customers in this field.”
How did you come across Kipp & Zonen
“When choosing our fields of activity we started from what we were interested in based on the technical background of the company’s staff, but in the case of meteorology and measuring meteorological parameters we also wanted to meet the needs of a new and fast growing market. In addition to that, the rapid development of the renewable energy market in Romania, as well as the focus of the PV field on more than 1 MW systems, made us commit ourselves to becoming the most important provider of solar instruments.
As we wanted to offer our Romanian customers the best quality and the widest range of solar instruments, we contacted Kipp & Zonen and initiated business with them. Kipp & Zonen supported our idea of building this business on in-depth technical knowledge and, in addition to the detailed technical documentation available on the company’s website, they also invited us for training.”
What is Echipot’s main approach for the coming years, when it comes to marketing Kipp & Zonen instruments?
“Our goal is to establish brand awareness of Kipp & Zonen within the growing Romanian photovoltaic sector. We want everyone to know about the benefits of monitoring solar radiation and that we are the supplier and service provider of advanced solar radiation measurement systems. Next to the industrial sector we also hope to get the academic world informed on the possibilities and quality of your instruments. Next year will be a busy one, with a tour throughout Romania to take part in photovoltaic conferences and visiting universities.”
What is your first project with Kipp & Zonen instruments?
“Though we are only at the beginning of our business with Kipp & Zonen, we are pleased that we will soon set up complex solar radiation measurement equipment. The system includes a SOLYS 2 sun tracker, two CMP 22 pyranometers, a CGR 4 pyrgeometer and a CHP 1 pyrheliometer. The instruments will be connected to a COMBILOG data logger and will measure global, direct and diffuse short-wave solar radiation, as well as atmospheric infrared radiation. The equipment was purchased by Transylvania University Brasov and it will be used to collect data for a Centre for Renewable Energies and Energy Recycling, to size and simulate solar energy systems (both thermal and photovoltaic).”
What are your impressions of the 2 days training at the Kipp & Zonen head office?
“We’ve done our homework and came well prepared. We’ve read the book you’ve recently published for example, the Guide to Solar Radiation Measurement. And we studied the product documentation to create a list of questions. All questions have been answered and we’ve learned the details of installation in-depth. We’ve actually set-up a SOLYS 2 sun tracker ourselves and it was relatively easy. Thanks to the time spent with the product managers and the various presentations we are now fully geared up to install and service Kipp & Zonen instruments.
We trust that our experience in marketing new products in Romania will help us to be successful with Kipp & Zonen instruments as well. What we have achieved so far is the result of the hard work of a small team whose members have been trained in various fields and within which enthusiasm is combined with thorough technical knowledge in the best possible way.”
Kipp & Zonen is happy to announce that, Echipot is our new distributor for Romania.
http://www.echipot.ro/
