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Authentic Leadership – is what we are aiming at

What is the point in following others unless you do not think you can do more?

When we started Renewable Energy in Sri Lanka in 2000, we were not the first, a hand full of Solar pioneers have been around. However,we were different. What we did not know then, we know today in terms of how different we in fact were! None of the companies, being active in renewable energy back then - those "Solar Companies" - are still around today and/or are still doing Renewable Energy - other than us!
That – for sure – is one clear difference, however it is not the only difference.
Today, between Christmas and New Year of 2013, I assume there are far over 30 so called "Solar Companies" doing all the same thing – "Net-Metering"! Some of course have a longer record as companies on this island than we do, but certainly not on Renewable Energy but on something totally else. Some even have been active in quite the opposite of Renewable Energy.
We can clearly see, that we are different than those companies – again! We started with Renewable Energy and nothing but Renewable!
Our ethical conviction is what made us choose the path we took, not a perspective of fast, huge and logically short-term profit. Had that been our aim, we could as well have stayed in Germany, running with all the others in the same race!
That, again, is what is definitely different between us and those over 30 competitors! The last difference I want to point out in this respect is, that we do not choose our Partners according to their lowest price offer. We choose – as far as possible – leading companies in the business. Especially the Solar Industry, in which Germany has been the key initiator and driving motor,German producers have gone through a serious struggle in the past years. Some of the problems are "home-made", due to the ongoing Government, that is doing everything in its power, to support the classic multi-national and globally acting Energy-Giants with all their Lobby-power, arguably with illegal and partially criminal methods. Fact is that the Government has to serve the people and not the "Multi-Nationals", however that is pure theory in Germany today!
Some of the problems are due to the Chinese solar-dumping that is going on for some years now, just as illegal or at least un-ethical as the disturbances at home.
The companies that are active in the Solar Industry in Germany have clearly survived those struggles – for REASONS!
Our very first choice of a partner back in 2000 was Steca GmbH in Memmingen, the pioneer in terms of battery management and charging systems and for over 30 years now, solar charge controllers and systems. Today one of the leading German producers of top quality grid-inverters with leading edge Technology. A truly Authentic Leader!

We are very proud to be Steca's main agent in Sri Lanka today. Especially this relationship is what gave us the source, the power and the guidance to persist on the path we have chosen! I do not want to imagine where we would have ended up without Steca! Thanks to Mr. Voigtbergersenior and his sons, thank you Michael Müller. Without your support and without your top quality products and service, without your Innovation, we would not be here, doing what we are doing – THANK YOU!

We also started out with Schott-Solar modules, truly a leader in what has to do with Glass. The modules we still have in operation are simply excellent –TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE – in the most direct sense those words can express. Schott-Solar has been extinguished by the policy of a doctor of Physics and Chemistry, a doctor with "honor", it has been one of the victims of the politics of Dr. Angela Merkel, Bundeskanzler of Germany!

Those solar modules from former Schott-Solar, you might be able to compare to something of a mix between what, in the automobile industry, can be seen as "Daimler Benz" & "Rolls Royce", today it seems galactic.
Without my knowledge at that time of my decision, this anecdote can be continued with our supplier for solar modules since 2012 – SOLARWATT GmbH, Dresden. We have been looking for a module producer that really manufactures in Germany and not in China or anywhere else, sending it to Germany and labeling it there! We had our experiences even with Indian quality products. We decided it had to be a German product, for us to be leading. There are a lot of "followers" on the market in Sri Lanka today, customers can buy the other stuff there, our competitors will be happy and if the customer is happy too, we have no problem with that!
With Solarwatt, the above anecdote – however – continues, as we found out after we cleared our first delivery.
One of the founders of Solarwatt, over 20 years ago, was Stefan Quandt, a man about my age, involved in various other business activities. One of which is BMW AG, Munich, the other top class German automobile company today besides Daimler Benz. The Quandt Family has proven vital to BMW in its history like hardly any other family, playing an important role to an existing world-class brand in industrial history. Today Stefan Quandt, together with his sister and his mother, still hold nearly 50% of the shares of BMW AG!
To continue the link of the anecdote to our subject of solar modules, Stefan Quandt, with his investment holding, owes 99% of the shares of Solarwatt GmbH. It does not need to be mentioned but Stefan Quandt is member of the Board of Directors of BMW!
BMW owes "Rolls Royce" the other half in above anecdote.
What proofs us right in making that decision for Solarwatt at that time might be explained in the fact that BMW is the first of the world leading automobile manufacturers that has designed an electric vehicle, starting on a clean sheet of paper, from scratch and has introduced its solution this November 2013 with the "BMW i3" (http://www.guideautoweb.com/en/articles/23258/2015_bmw_i3_electric_wonder/). Some time back BMW made the decision to lead into a new era

Back in 2000, when 50 to 100 Watt modules have been installed in Sri Lanka under the "RERED Solar-Home-Scheme", it was not important what structure carried the module and connected it to the roof of the hut on which it was installed. The frame of the module did the job, more or less on its own!
Today, when you install 200 to 400 kg, or more, of solar modules, worth over a Million Ruppies on a expensive roof, possibly in the second, third or fourth floor of a building it is important and let me tell you from our experience, such a structure makes a very big difference!
We have designed our first serious mounting structure back in 2010, using over 2000 kg of steel for one of the largest grid connected solar projects of that time, cutting and drilling it according to our own design. Put it together with over 4000 nuts and bolts. It was perfect, it was worth the investment and it was certainly worth the experience, putting it all together withSilvarisSellar down in Ahungalla! I would not do it again today, but would I be able to turn the time back, I would not hesitate to do the same thing again, just as we did it then.
Today I have Schletter GmbH, Kirchdorf-Haag, im Oberbayerischen Voralpenland. Schletter is by far the best supplier of solar roofing structures world-wide – take, for once, my word for it!
When I am at home in Feldkirchen-Westerham, I can take my old bicycle from the roof and cycle there. It is that close, I used to play basketball in that region for many, many years, not noticing that company at that timeand not in my wildest dreams would I have thought that this producer of glass-houses and other light structures, would one day be an essential partner of mine, installing expensive solar-technology somewhere in Asia!

At a certain point, data-sheets and warranty certificates, however much they are required and important, do not say much about the products real performance, they are printed on paper or copied in a pdf-file and that can be done by everybody, everywhere, even without proof in reality. In the worst case the customer ends filing law-suits against false statements in such documents. When it comes to this it is obvious that the made investment was not worth it, whatever the judge might decide years later!
How can the customer still be sure, what is presented to him is worth its price?
Choose supplier which are "Authentic Leaders"! One of their key qualities is, that they sustain all these remaining doubts – they simply sustain! And just that is what it makes it price-worthy for the customer at the end of the day!
As we have mentioned time and again on this website, as a logic consequence of our conviction of renewable energy and renewable energy only, in 2013 we started to introduce our view of modern means of transportation – e-mobility – changing everything that today is expected and taken for granted in our every-day-life, the way we are traveling.

Again, we will not follow others, we owe it to ourselves that we can do better than that. About 5 years ago, we all saw electric scooters coming from China for next to nothing, when it came to the initial investment! Where are they today? Not one has been seen more than what, maybe 6 months, then the battery was worn out or the bike fell apart. Electric Mobility became a curse, it died before it could proof to mainstream what it is capable of – just like the first generation of "Solar-Power".

Too expensive – not capable of serving the needs of the client!

Again, we chose German suppliers to become our first partners in this new segment, we chose pioneers that lead the way in electric mobility with their innovation and their courage to "Change"!

Let us introduce FEDDZ, our first partner on the subject of e-Mobility a small entrepreneur striping what looks like a bicycle from most everything and designing it to something that seems out of this world – at least for now. FEDDZ – "Fast Electric Drive DynamicZ" http://www.feddz.de/en-DE/probefahren.aspx & www.feddz.lk

The second partner is Fleck-Elektroauto, a innovative engineer that started over 5 years ago to do something against the reluctant or rather destructive automobile industry when it comes to finally offering what has been ready for use in a competitive form, way back in the year 1900. He took available vehicles, de-contaminated them from everything having to do with combustion technique and composed with existing and available components his own electric vehicles that blew the mind out of whoever drove it! http://www.fleck-elektroauto.de/

Our third partner is "Turn-e", a designer and marketing expert and his friend, turning vehicles to electric in a very special way. We are proud to introduce the electric Porsche speedster 356 – the "Turn-e-speedster" to our customers in Sri Lanka. No doubt this vehicle is a legend in the automobile history and it is fully electric today! http://www.turn-e.de/

E-Mobility is essentially and effectively coupled with IT Applications. A functioning full-service on e-Mobility without IT-competence and expertise is impossible. Our Partner in all aspects of IT requirements in the past 10 years has been INNOVAY, is an IT consultant company focused on providing Consulting, Social Media Management, Mobile Apps Google Apps, Cloud and Business process solution development services to USA, Australia, Europe and Asia.

Entering our new field of operation at ASET, the Automotivesection, we have decided to combine our know-how and experience in renewable energy and our efforts in e-Mobility of the past years with the expertise of this IT-Specialist in order to develop and offer a competent solutions for our customers. www.innovay.com

Besides our German solar equipment, I am proud to have two old vehicles. One is a 1969 VW beetle-convertible, 44 years of age, which I bought as an electrical engineering student in Munich some 30 years ago and today we drive it whenever we are back home in Feldkirchen-Westerham. The other one is a VW beetle 1958, 55 years of age, which we are happily driving in Sri Lanka. Together both vehicles are not less than 99 years in operation and still going!

Both the original warranty certificates would not have indicated that, when those two vehicles have been sold to their first owners. Eventually the "BRAND", the "MAKE" did!

If all that is not given, to clarify the last doubt about any installed foreign produced component, it helps if the customer knows that the installing partner is something like a "Authentic Leader" in its field, with a record that indicates his character, having to do withhonest relationships built on an ethical foundation. That is what we – ASET Automotive & Solar Environmental Technology – are aiming at!