KET Kirpal Energietechnik GmbH was established in the private home of Kurt Kirpal, which was quite common shortly after the historical changes of 1989 in Germany. Having completed German school granting higher education entrance qualification he underwent professional training as a technician for measurement and control technology to work at the film factory AGFA Filmfabrik Wolfen and subsequently at a test bench for locomotive boilers with Vorwärmer und Kesselbau Köthen, a company specializing in preheaters and boiler construction. Then he was send to Leipzig to study process engineering in 1967. Having successfully completed his studies he quickly became the manager of a team commissioning heat plants for this thriving GDR company. Then, he began a challenging specialist training to become an expert at the Technical Inspection in Leipzig. When the focus increasingly shifted away from “technology” he accepted a job at the Energy Combine Leipzig and was responsible for various special building measurements. After his regular working hours he busied himself with planning various heating plants, preferably for hospitals. He continued with this after the peaceful revolution in 1990 and began working independently in his private home.
Relatively quickly he was assigned with various tasks for the Deutsche Telekom, the Zoo Leipzig, several hospitals, and also for a tourist attraction of the monument forge “Denkmalschmiede in Höfgen” (near Grimma), for which he received the “Federal Award for Monument Preservation” with respect to his planning and realization efforts. From 1998 to 2000 he and his son Kristian Kirpal, himself a Diplom Engineer (University of Applied Sciences), collaborated with the Technical University of Freiberg to develop the first Saxon fuel cell to run on natural gas. At the same time, the company received its first major order to manufacture supply lines for Porsche’s first module plant.
Despite the fact that the fuel cell worked it could not be mass produced because of exceedingly high material costs. However, the technical expertise acquired during this research projects was successfully used to develop a 3D CAD/CAM process. This ultimately necessitated building a new production hall in 2003. This process, accompanied by state-of-the-art robot and welding technology, was the foundation for the continuous growth we have seen since.
This production process was awarded with the Innovation Price 2003 in Wiesbaden as the winner among 47 nominees. Already in 2009, yet another hall had to be build for the company to have a production area totaling 2000m2 equipped with modern manufacturing technologies for pipe processing.
Diplom-Engineer (University of Applied Sciences) Kristian Kirpal, the son of the company founder, has been responsible for the operative business and finances as Director since 1 June 2007. The average age of our approximately 40 employees is 38 years. Thanks to the satisfaction of numerous major customers such as BMW, Porsche, the Helmholtz Centre, and German Railway and because of our modern production methods, we achieved continuous growth.
In addition to investment orders we realize various maintenance and repair works on electrical and supply engineering facilities, and also on facilities requiring monitoring by accredited experts.
Our responsibility already begins with a tailored customer communication, and it continues with realizing optimal and efficient project-specific solutions capable to be CAD-planned in detail and 3D, and last but not least our responsibility also covers the cost-effective prefabrication of facility systems, pipe components, and complex supply modules. Quality assurance, reliability, and flexibility are a matter of course for us.
Designing the future – Paying attention to detail – Keeping sight of the goal
these are the lines along which KET has been able to successfully develop both economically and technologically since 1990.