General manager for Phoenix Contact South Africa, Carl Kleynhans.
By Diane Silcock
PHOENIX Contact South Africa—a leader in the field of connection technology—is a 55-year-old wholly-owned subsidiary of the Phoenix Contact global group which in 2023 reached its 100-year milestone.
General manager, Carl Kleynhans, of Phoenix Contact South Africa says, “We pride ourselves on having our own physical presence in the country versus appointing agents. We offer our customers high quality durable products, joint project management, assistance in programming, consultation during installation and start-up processes, customer education, training and technical support.”
Globally, the company is passionate about technology and fully committed towards ESG goals. Phoenix Contact is among the top five percent of companies awarded gold medal status for their sustainability performance by the independent analysts at Ecovadis. In 2023, Phoenix Contact’s key measures included investments in renewable energies, resource conservation measures, and diversity initiatives.
Kleynhans expresses, “Our very purpose is ‘together we are creating a sustainable world based on our passion for technology and innovation’. Locally, we have taken steps to reduce our carbon emissions by investing in a solar solution at our head office in Randburg which has drastically reduced our reliance on carbon-based generated energy. This substantiates and embraces our commitment on a path to continuously reduce our carbon footprint.”
Empowering the All Electric Society
According to Kleynhans, their technologies are key to realising the All Electric Society through their solutions for electrification, networking and automation. “The increasing electrification, networking and automation of sectors, goes hand in hand with the growing dependency on reliable green sustainable power supply solutions.
“Through the efficient monitoring and management of these sustainable power supplies, we not only measure and manage these resources, but also communicate this information via digital and automated processes, to better inform and hone industries and societies for the future and wholistic power usage. Even more importantly, we cannot do it alone, so it will only be achieved through strong collaboration with our customers, partners and end users,” Kleynhans asserts.
Charging technology for sustainable mobility
Along with clean power generation, e-mobility is a key element paving the way to the All Electric Society. Phoenix Contact has specialised in e-mobility charging technology since 2013 and is a world leader in high power charging for both AC and DC charge stations and power storage. The company offers a full range of charging sockets for all types of vehicles, both commercial and industrial, along with all the various charging plugs, cables and products to support the charging infrastructure.
“A space we are particularly interested in,” says Kleynhans, “is the industrial e-mobility arena like mining, as the uptake in South Africa we believe will be relatively quicker. By the end of 2024, we will have installed the first charging station at our site in Randburg thereby showcasing our own technology.
“We pride ourselves on working with the best partners in the market and being best in class in our space as well as being an easy company to work with. Recently we received our first BBBEE rating, and although we still have a way to go, we have started the journey,” concludes Kleynhans.
