About Photovoltaik

Photovoltaik

Photovoltaik — "Das Magazin für Profis" — is the German monthly B2B specialist magazine for the solar-power industry, published by the Alfons W. Gentner Verlag in Stuttgart. Founded in 2007 by the publishing partnership of the Gentner Verlag and the Berlin Solarpraxis AG — the first issue appearing in June 2007 at the Intersolar fair in Freiburg with a 50,000-copy launch run — it has appeared monthly since August 2007; since April 2013 the magazine and the photovoltaik.eu online platform have been the Gentner Verlag's sole responsibility, serving the solar industry continuously. The redaction sits in Berlin, close to the energy-policy capital and the solar industry's associations. Not available at newsstands, it addresses exclusively the companies of the photovoltaics industry via subscription: the specialists and decision-makers who advise and implement PV installations in their daily business.

Overview

Photovoltaik is a German-language monthly B2B magazine for photovoltaics, published in Stuttgart by the Alfons W. Gentner Verlag GmbH & Co. KG. It appears monthly; the redaction is based in Berlin. The distribution: subscription only — the magazine is not in the newsstand trade, addressing not end customers but the PV industry's companies. The focus: the use of solar power by private households, businesses, industry and municipal users. The departments: Generator und Zubehör (generator and accessories), Planung und Wartung (planning and maintenance), Dach und Fassade (roof and facade), Strom und Wärme (power and heat), Gewerbe und Kommune (business and municipality), Freizeit und Mobilität (leisure and mobility), Kaufen und Beraten (buying and advising), Betrieb und Organisation (operation and organisation). The generator department covers the hardware: the modules' efficiencies, the inverters' topologies, the mounting systems' statics — the PV system's components. The planning-and-maintenance department covers the project: the yield forecasts, the shading analyses, the servicing contracts — the installation's lifecycle. The roof-and-facade department covers the building integration: the in-roof systems, the facade modules, the solar architecture — the building as the power plant. The power-and-heat department covers the sector coupling: the heat pumps' solar power, the hot water's PV heating — the electrons' heat use. The business-and-municipality department covers the commercial segment: the investors' yields, the municipalities' climate plans, the tenders. The leisure-and-mobility department covers the off-grid: the camping modules, the boats, the e-bikes' and e-cars' solar charging. The buying-and-advising department covers the commerce: the purchase criteria, the consultation quality. The operation-and-organisation department covers the companies: the installers' management, the business models. The programme: the market data, the technology, the practice — the solar industry's monthly. The 2007 launch's market data — the German module manufacturers' 30-percent market share in 2006, the world market's 16–19 percent growth — show the journal's data journalism from the first issue. The data's message: the German industry's competitiveness — the better availability and the quality preference pushing the cheap imports out — the export rate's quadrupling, the solar cells' 35-percent export quota. The journal's market-data tradition — the figures' sources named, the backgrounds explained — established the B2B credibility: the professionals trusting the numbers.

History

On 7 March 2007 the listed Solarpraxis AG — the Berlin consulting and service company, the only listed knowledge-service provider in renewable energies — and the Alfons W. Gentner Verlag GmbH & Co. KG signed the publishing-partnership agreement: the first joint product the new industry specialist journal "Photovoltaik." The zero issue appeared at the Intersolar 2007 leading fair with a 50,000-copy start run; from early September the magazine appeared in the regular monthly rhythm. The partnership's novelty: the first strategic partnership between a renewable-energies company and the classic crafts media — the Solarpraxis's industry know-how bundled with the Gentner Verlag's publishing competence. The novelty's logic: the solar industry's information need — the booming market's professionals advising and implementing — meeting the crafts media's distribution: the Gentner house's 50 journals reaching the installers, the Solarpraxis's knowledge filling them. Karl-Heinz Remmers (Solarpraxis CEO) and Erwin Fidelis Reisch (Gentner managing director) announced the international ambitions: further domestic and foreign partners for the international distribution. Since April 2013 the magazine and photovoltaik.eu have been the Gentner Verlag's sole responsibility. The Gentner Verlagsgruppe — the Stuttgart specialist-media house for building services: sanitary and heating, refrigeration and climate, glass, electrical and safety technology, plus occupational and assessment medicine — with over 50 specialist journals, present in Germany, China, India, Poland, Hungary, Czechia and Ukraine. The magazine's 19 years — 2007 to 2026 — span the German solar industry's boom, crisis and rebirth: the EEG feed-in tariffs' golden age, the Chinese competition's shakeout, the energy transition's revival. The golden age — the 2007–2012 EEG boom — was the launch's context: the 50,000-copy zero issue at the Intersolar, the installers' gold rush, the German manufacturers' 30-percent share. The shakeout — the 2012–2018 Chinese competition and the EEG cuts — tested the industry: the German manufacturers' insolvencies, the installers' consolidation — the magazine reporting the crisis. The rebirth — the 2019–2026 energy transition and the energy crisis — revived the demand: the private households' balcony power plants, the industry's PPAs, the municipalities' solar offensives — the magazine reporting the revival. Through the cycle the monthly's readership held: the professionals who advise and implement, in boom and crisis.

Coverage and Content

The magazine's programme is the solar professional's knowledge. The market data: the German and world market's figures — the module manufacturers' shares, the export rates (the 2006 quadrupling from 4 to 16 percent, the solar cells' 35 percent), the EEG degression's effects. The technology: the generators and accessories — the modules, the inverters, the mounting systems. The planning and maintenance: the PV installations' design, the yield calculations, the servicing. The roof and facade: the building integration — the solar architecture. The power and heat: the sector coupling — the PV's heat applications. The business and municipality: the commercial and communal installations — the investors, the tenders. The leisure and mobility: the camping, the boating, the e-mobility's solar charging. The buying and advising: the purchase decisions, the consultation. The operation and organisation: the companies' management. The journalism is the B2B trade press's: the market data, the practice, the technology — the solar professionals' monthly.

Organization and Ownership

Photovoltaik is published by the Alfons W. Gentner Verlag GmbH & Co. KG in Stuttgart — the building-services specialist publisher, founded as the 80-year leading specialist publisher in renewable energies' market per the 2007 announcement. The redaction sits in Berlin. The commercial model is the B2B subscription journal's: the subscriptions — the industry's companies subscribing — the solar industry's advertising — the module manufacturers, the inverter makers, the installers — and the photovoltaik.eu online platform's digital revenues. Detailed circulation figures and editorial-staff information are not publicly confirmed in the sources available.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website is photovoltaik.eu — the online platform with the daily news, the market data, the subscriptions, in the Gentner Verlag's sole responsibility since April 2013, serving the solar professionals. In the German solar-press landscape Photovoltaik occupies the B2B-monthly pole: the 2007-founded professionals' journal — the Intersolar zero issue's 50,000 copies, the monthly rhythm, the Berlin redaction — from the Stuttgart Gentner house to the solar industry's specialists and decision-makers, monthly by subscription, in print and online. The B2B-only distribution — the subscription journal not in the newsstands — is the positioning: the professionals' journal, not the consumers' — the installers, the planners, the investors reading, the households served by the readers. The Gentner house's building-services portfolio — the 50-plus journals for the sanitary, heating, climate, electrical trades — is the context: the solar journal in the crafts-media house, the PV installers alongside the heating engineers.