History
The story of Valentin Software is inextricably linked with the story of Berlin. In the 1970s, the young Gerhard Valentin studied electrical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin. At that time, the development of solar systems in the still divided city was heavily promoted. The young engineer was given the opportunity to provide scholarly assistance in the construction of a solar heating system and develop the software for it. Even though Fortran, the programming language of the day, is now obsolete, this project formed the foundation stone of today's successful Berlin-based company whose programs are used to plan solar systems all around the world.
In 1988, Gerhard Valentin founded his one-man business and only a short time later, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification, was faced with his next, unexpected challenge: the Berlin Senate had to switch the lignite power stations which were extremely harmful to the environment in the east over to modern, environmentally-friendly technology. Valentin Software won the contract for the concept and rewrote the long-unused Fortran program for the Federal Environment Ministry, which ran on the PCs just coming into general use.
The program has been called T*SOL® since 1993 and to the present day runs on all Windows computers. It plans heating supply using solar-thermal energy for single family homes and entire city districts alike. Since 1998, the range has been expanded by the PV*SOL® photovoltaic line, while CO2PRA has been optimizing cogeneration systems since 1999.
Today, Valentin Software is based in the Energy Forum in Berlin-Friedrichshain and employs some 40 people. The company has a branch office in California and sells its software products globally. Even customers in Australia and Tibet use the expertise of Valentin Software. T*SOL and PV*SOL are now available in German, English, French, Spanish and Italian.
The young engineer of yesterday has long since become the successful manager of his company: “I may not have time for programming any more, but the continued development of cutting-edge technologies is a matter very close to my heart."
