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Productive energy
Energy-efficient solutions not only result in sustainable growth, they also enable a fast return on investment for more market competitiveness.
Editors note
Dear readers,
There is no doubt that we are right in the middle of the most severe worldwide financial crisis since 80 years. Nevertheless, there are opportunities to be seized in these difficult times. It is a great chance to add sustainability to all our economic activities. And it is not just about realizing economical and ecological goals in the long run, its also about a short-term increase in productivity and competitiveness. This double benefit becomes eminently clear when both energy and resource efficiency are increased: The environment is not the sole beneficiary, businesses that invest in efficiency benefit as well. They simply need less energy and resources and can thus operate more profitably.
Heinrich Hiesinger, PhD CEO Industry Sector
The current study Pathways to a Low-Carbon Economy conducted by McKinsey & Company unmistakably shows: Investing in CO2-reducing technologies often gives a good return very quickly. For example, energetically optimizing buildings or improving energy efficiency of machines and drives. Regarding the entire lifecycle, such measures translate into pure profit even without taking the advantages of CO2 reduction into account, according to the survey. Sustainability pays off, here and now.
Siemens is a very capable partner in this regard: Hardly any other company has such a broad realm of knowledge and such an excellent portfolio to improve energy efficiency in businesses and organizations. Our customers CO2-savings amounted to 148 million tons last year alone these savings were reached with products and solutions from our environment portfolio. And potential for the years to come is tremendous. And for this reason, we have chosen energy efficiency as the main theme for this Industry Journals edition. Yours,
14: Energy efficiency the new imperative Energy costs constitute a large portion of a production companys costs. As the times of relatively affordable energy are over, efficient energy management is becoming more and more important.
Rising energy costs, increased pressure on return on investment, and more environmental awareness are causing a huge interest across all industries in concepts for energetically optimized machines and drives. This is no surprise: Electromotive drives account for two thirds of all industrial energy consumption. Savings potentials are clearly in the double-digit percent range.
Resources
0613: Less is more How energy-efficient solutions save
electricity and costs
1417: Energy efficiency the new imperative Why energy management is becoming
more and more important
2427: On the way to Copenhagen What strategies and measures can provide
more energy efficiency and climate protection
Contents
28: One hot deal Operators of municipal real estate and plants, as well as owners of administration and production sites, are suffering from low energy efficiency in their buildings. Energy Saving Performance Contracting can help.
38: Tiger on green paws South Korea is forcefully putting the United Nations Green New Deal into practice. The goal is less dependency on gas and oil as well as acquiring market shares in the green industries of the future.
48: Water means growth Water is scarce and precious in Singapore. Yet the Southeast Asian insular city-state is making the best of its situation. Meanwhile, it is regarded as a global competence center for the water technology growth sector.
Performance
2833: One hot deal
Who is profiting from Energy-Saving Performance Contracting
Environment
3843: Tiger on green paws
Why South Korea has launched a huge eco-offensive
Urbanization
4853: Water means growth
How Singapore recycles millions of liters of water every day
5859: Spotlight
How innovative products and solutions result in increased competitiveness worldwide
6061: Impressum
The copper mine in Los Pelambres, Chile, is considered to be one of the most profitable mines in the world. One reason for this is downward conveyor belts produce electricity which is fed into the network.
Less is more
Energy efficiency is turning into the industrys driving factor. Rising energy costs, increasing pressure on return on investment, and a strong consciousness for more climate protection are causing a huge interest in concepts for energetically optimized machines and drives. This is no surprise considering there is potential for cost savings in double-digit numbers. Whether in surface mining, in the steel, cement, chemical, glass, or pulp and paper industry most of the time the focus is on two drive technologies: energy-efficient motors and freqency converters.
Whether in enormous dump trucks in surface mining (above), technologies for the paper industry (left), or for cement production energy-efficient solutions from Siemens are everywhere.
The sky is so blue, it seems as if Yves Klein just painted it himself. The air is crisp and clear. Its very early in the morning and temperatures are just above freezing point. Heavy-load trucks are roaring along the roads in the Chilean Atacama Desert. They have to share the narrow roads with minivans and jeeps that seem like toys in comparison. Tourists are on their way from the Tatio geysers at 4,300 meters above sea level back to San Pedro de Atacama. Apart from these tourists not very many people make their way to this barren region. At night it is too cold, during the day it is too hot, drought, dust, scarce vegetation, merely a few huts and llamas that's about it. In the Atacama region lies the most waterless and highest desert in the world. And also the copper mine Los Pelambres. It is considered to be one of the most profitable mining facilities in the world. Despite adverse circumstances with extreme temperature variations, with thunderstorms, snow, avalanches of debris, despite long transport distances for the excavated copper and difficult excavation circumstances. The gigantic mine at 3,200 meters altitude is two and a half kilometers long, two kilometers wide, and by 2030 it will be one kilometer deep. The mine's backbone consists of a 13-kilometer-long conveyor system. The conveyor belt, of 1.8 meters in width with an average gradient of 10 percent, lugs 8,700 tons of ore per hour up to the processing plant at 1,600 meters altitude. 8,700 tons that equals the transport capacity of 200 heavy-load trucks. How in the world is it possible that a copper mine is so highly profitable under such circumstances? The conveyor system developed and built in cooperation by Siemens and ThyssenKrupp plays a decisive role the biggest and most efficient of its kind. The system doesn't just consume electricity, it produces electricity as well. Provided that it conveys an average of at least 800 tons of ore. If this is the case, the conveyor system operates automatically to a large extent. Ten Siemens motors installed for the system's start-up and consistent operation then act as generators, producing 90 million kilowatt hours per year about as much as 25,000 western households consume during this time. Minera Los Pelambres thus generates 15 percent of the electricity needed for operation by itself and saves 50,000 tons of CO2 emissions every year. In recognition of this, the mine was awarded a prize for efficient energy usage by the Chilean government. Whether in surface mining, in steel production, in the pulp and paper industry, or in manufacturing: 20 million industrial motors worldwide con-
sume 65 percent of the electricity for industrial usage. An energy-efficient optimization of these motors would result in 360 million tons less CO2 emissions. That about equals Australia's overall CO2 emissions. The electricity-generating Siemens drive system in the Chilean copper mine is only one of many examples for innovative and energy-saving approaches. Considering dwindling fossil fuel resources, rising energy costs, and the fight against permanent climate change, energy efficiency has turned into the global economy's guiding mantra. The guiding theme in this matter is called operational energy management. Modeled on quality management it provides as a basis for the continuous increase in productivity for the energy employed. Instead of just reacting to energy gobblers that were detected more or less coincidentally, purposefully conducted energy management allows consistent and permanent evaluation of energy currents and their amelioration. Considering the declining developments in the new installation sector, efficiency, flexibility, and reliability of existing plants are becoming more and more important. Their modernization can save up to three-quarters of hitherto existing energy costs, enabling a fast ROI. To uncover all energy saving potentials in industrial manufacturing, a holistic assessment of the entire plant is necessary. Siemens offers an energy optimization service (EOS) to support operational energy management and evaluate
The energy management lifecycle: A continuous energetic improvement of the entire production facility leads to constantly improved energy productivity.
Especially in energy-intensive industries such as the glass industry, drives are not only intended to consume energy but to produce it as well. Braking energy, occuring in conveyor systems or hydraulic lifts, can thus be re-fed into the network with equipment such as Sinamics S 120. This not only saves electricity, but also costs for cooling that would be needed otherwise.
all relevant forms of energy and energy processes in the business. Electric motor drive systems have a significant impact, especially pumps, ventilators, compressors, or centrifuges. They account for two-thirds of the industry's energy consumption. Were energy-efficient drives universally put to use, 15 percent of this consumption rate could be spared. One-fifth of this savings potential can be realized with energy-saving motors. Every electric motor is an electromechanical energy converter, transforming electricity into a rotation due to the action of force between electric currents and magnetic fields. Electric motors have a high efficiency rate more than 95 percent to some extent. E-motors have been categorized into several classes of efficiency rates. Energy-saving motors in class IE-2 have 40 percent less power dissipation than conventional motors. Mostly
electric resistors in the motor's wire wound coils, eddy currents and frictional losses are the cause of energy losses. This is where an energy management concept begins to apply losses are minimized using various approaches. On the one hand by increasing the active material's packing density, explains Peter Zwanziger, project manager for energy efficiency at Siemens. On the other hand the friction of rotating parts is reduced. The otherwise common losses within the rotor play a consequential role as well. "We are able to reduce these by using copper instead of aluminum. Copper has less resistor loss, increasing efficiency rates," says the engineer with a doctor's degree. Further, an improved ventilation system reduces the thermal strain on the motor. Lubricants stay intact longer, maintenance becomes less frequent. Further advantage: A compact, highly efficient IE-2 version has the same housing dimensions as an IE-1 version. So every
The new generation of IEC motors (left) are equipped with innovative copper technology, making them highly energy-efficient. They are put to use in drinking water pump stations, for example (above).
The SIVACON motor control center (left) specializes in energy distribution in industrial plants. It is often used in the chemical industry (above) as well as in wastewater treatment plants and water works (above).
machine may be retrofitted with energy-saving motors without any problems one of the strong points of Siemens' energy-saving motors. Possible energy savings lie between two and two and a half percent. That doesn't sound like much at first, says Dr. Zwanziger. But if you look at the machine from a lifecycle point of view, things start to look a little different. After all, electricity costs account for the largest portion of an electrical drive's lifecycle costs. Effectively, acquisition costs only make up about three percent of a drive's costs, provided you have a service life of ten years and 2,000 hours of operation per year. Energy costs exceed an electrical motor's acquisition costs, commissioning and maintenance costs by up to 99 percent. That's why two percent savings are a big deal when you sum it all up. Investments for a new acquisition of an energy-saving motor are amortized within 12 to 18 months.
However, energy-saving motors are only a part of the answer to the big question of where the biggest energy-saving potentials are. Electronically controlled variable-speed drives can make an even bigger difference with up to 70 percent savings. Predominantly these can be engines without speed control, such as pumps, for example. Pumps belong to the bigest energy gobblers they consume up to 30 percent of all industrial energy. According to a study by the German Energy Agency (Deutsche Energie-Agentur), potentials for cost-saving by optimizing pump systems are at an average of 30 percent including exenditures for maintenance and service. Drives of this kind are often regulated by wasteful mechanical central lubrication systems. This can be compared to someone driving a car at constant full throttle and controlling his speed by braking, Zwanziger explains. Switching to variable-speed drives has enormous savings potential here.
A so-called frequency converter is put into action. This device turns an AC-defined frequency into a voltage differing in frequency and amplitude. This enables the variable-speed operation of equipment from zero to nominal speed without losing torque. Operating equipment efficiently even with partial load is thereby possible. Here's a sample calculation: Located in the center of a metropolis you'll find an impressive water fountain. It is operated with a 900 kW pump. In the morning and in the evening the pump runs at 60 percent capacity, at night at merely 30 percent. During the day, when many people are watching, it works at full capacity of 100 percent. Usually a damper flap regulates the load, the pump itself runs constantly at 100 percent capacity. By installing a frequency converter, operation may now be controlled electronically, flexibly, and continuously. This saves more than 50 percent in energy costs. Amortization time for the investment is less than three months. The Volan Cement Plant Group in Mongolia was able to reduce its energy consumption by one-third with the help of frequency converters. 10,500 tons of cement are produced here every day. Statistically that equals the per capita consumption of more than 10,000 inhabitants of western industrial nations. Until only a few years ago the cement mill was using mechanical damper flaps to regulate air currents for pumps, oven ventilators, cooling units, and mills. After Volan Cement Plant Group had commissioned
Siemens to upgrade the draft fan motors in cooling units with frequency inverters to variable-speed systems, the four production lines energy consumption went down by exactly 35.78 percent. This results in massive cost savings, most of all for energy-intensive industries such as the cement industry. For a Shell tank farm in Ludwigshafen, Germany, the savings reached by installing frequency converters added up to 35,000 Euros per year. Siemens had developed a concept to optimize operation of the main pumps for diesel extraction. With the help of the energy-saving program SinaSave it was possible to calculate the energy savings in advance. Implementation followed. The new system's core now consists of two Siemens frequency converters: two Micromaster 440s, each with 132 kW performance. They are controlled via Profibus DP and fiber optics from the control room. Installing frequency converters has even more advantages than just saving electrical energy. Processes are improved and the pipeline network is subjected to less strain than when damper flaps in main pumps cause severe mechanical blows. The soft start-up and runout unburdens the mechanics of the entire drive chain and increases its endurance. Blast waves are a thing of the past as well. Energy-saving motors and a variable-speed operation are the core of efficient energy management. Their installation could mean energy
What kind of an effect does the crisis of the economy have on the discussion regarding energyefficient drives and equipment? 2009 will be the year of energy efficiency. This year evaluating lifecycle costs will be paramount. Operating costs, energy consumption, and resource usage will play a significantly increasing role in the overall view. In your opinion, what are key technologies? For measurable physical savings with machines and equipment, mainly energy-saving motors and frequency converters. Something which is often overlooked: We are also looking for ideas that do not only pertain to the operation of machines or plants. The problem's solution begins much earlier, with meticulous engineering, consistent analyses, and automation concepts. This
will take us one gigantic step further on our way to a sensible use of resources and lower energy costs. Where are the biggest efficiency potentials, other than with drives? Efficiency in production is not limited to using efficient components. We have to assess the entire process and the infrastructure, and we can't leave any room for gaps. Analyzing processes of machining and a sensible coordination of main and secondary processes creates a significant realm of potential for saving energy.
savings of up to three billion Euros in the European Union alone. Optimizing energy consumption on the component level is thus an important element of saving costs and reducing CO2 emissions. A holistic assessment of consumed energy, a solid evaluation of the analysis, and a following systematical energy optimization have central meaning as well. A holistic examination of energy currents that accumulate during a product's lifecycle is also very important. This starts as soon as in the engineering phase. Siemens offers a very impressive portfolio of simulation tools for machine layout and production processes. That shortens a machines Time-to-Market considerably, says Zwanziger. But machines' planned downtime, in non-working shifts for example, is something worth considering. An intelligent standby-operation in logistics facilities like conveyors creates entirely new savings potentials. The same goes for automation solutions that start up and close down plants closely according to plan. Pilot projects have shown that costs for comprehensive energy optimization scenarios, including motors and frequency converters, can be amortized after just 24 months. Optimization leads to reduced production costs, increased ROI, and less CO2 emissions sustainably and over the entire lifecycle of the plant. Even if not every factory will be as lucky as the copper mine in Los Pelambres, being able to create its own electricity.
High racks are especially well-suited for frequency inverters. They are responsible for re-feeding the conveyor system's braking energy into the network.
Energy can be the largest component of a manufacturers cost structure. Despite a recent drop in energy prices, costs are still trending upward over the long term, and the days of relatively cheap energy are long gone. Certainly, manufacturers have always strived for energy efficiency, but now it has become an imperative. Energy management practices must be realigned in the current climate of expensive energy.
Many manufacturers, particularly those in the refining and chemical industries, have focused in recent years on just meeting demand. Increasing capacity and upgrading automation systems to maximize production took precedence during the recent economic expansion. Now that the economy has cooled, it is a good time for manufacturers to decide how best to align their operations to manage energy consumption and costs by developing and implementing an energy management initiative. In addition, automation suppliers are well aware of these challenges and offer a wide variety of solutions to help manufacturers make more efficient use of energy.
The author
David W. Humphrey is Director of European Research at ARC Advisory Group, Germany. He is responsible for ARCs Manufacturing Advisory Services in Europe. In the last 22 years of his career he has worked for Rockwell Automation and the Raytheon Company. Humphrey is an electrical engineer and earned his degree at the Stevens Institute of Technology, USA. Also, he is a graduate of the Vienna School of Economics and the University of South Carolina where he earned his international MBA.
ditional monitoring on the plant floor, but they provide the means to proactively control and reduce energy usage.
repair costs to help extend motor life. Pressure can be maintained to closer tolerances, enabling tighter process control. Manufacturers can also realize considerable energy savings from VSDs; reports of reductions of as much as 50 percent for pump applications are common. Real savings vary depending on pump size, load profile, static heat, and friction. In oil and gas applications, it is common practice to control the output of variable torque loads (such as in pumps, fans, and blowers) by throttling their input or output. This method, however, is inefficient. In contrast, using VSDs with large fans and pumps to control flow by modulating their speed can produce significant energy savings. The higher the level of motor operating time and the larger the variation in load duty cycles, the greater the opportunity for savings. A pipeline operator saved 5 million US dollars annually in transportation expenses while reducing the frequency of pipeline shutdowns that cost up to 750,000 US dollars per shutdown.
Condition monitoring
Condition monitoring is a predictive maintenance technique used primarily to monitor rotating equipment. Condition monitoring can help manufacturers detect subtle changes in performance, enabling maintenance to be scheduled or other actions to be taken to avoid equipment failure and its consequences. Vibration analysis compares the magnitude of vibration with historical baseline values to detect changes in equipment condition. While this is the most commonly employed condition monitoring technology, others include corrosion detection. The high costs of permanently mounted condition monitoring sensors and continuous monitoring systems have limited penetration of this approach to only the most critical rotating equipment. A more common practice is to periodically capture vibration signatures using handheld systems, and then analyze the signatures for indications of impending problems. Wireless vibration transmitters, recently introduced to the marketplace, are making condition monitoring more affordable and accessible. However, manufacturers must also be prepared to process, manage, and maintain the enormous amount of condition monitoring data that wireless sensors produce in order to extract the valuable information it contains.
>> Leading process manufacturers feel that energy management is a core competence. << Benchmarking of energy management
A comprehensive energy assessment or audit forms the basis for benchmarking the progress of an energy management program.
>>Leading process manufacturers perform regular energy audits, with short time intervals between. << Energy management and investments
Given that energy can be one of a manufacturers largest production costs, it follows that financial metrics are closely tied to energy use metrics. Both are key variables in determining when to make investments in equipment that impact energy efficiency, reduce capacity utilization, or perform maintenance to existing equipment.
tify important energy and environmental key performance indicators (KPI) to measure where they stand, and then continually benchmark these KPIs to provide guidance for continuous improvement. Operations management systems can also reduce energy usage through sophisticated algorithms to optimize deployment of resources. As an example, dynamically optimizing plant material routings or logistical routings in a fragmented supply chain saves significant energy and greatly reduces transportation costs. These systems can also generate energy cost savings by scheduling specific high-energy consumption activities at a time of the day when energy costs are at their lowest.
Indeed, in many cases large capital projects are justified by having an energy savings component reduced energy costs are a major factor in calculating ROI.
>> One large chemical manufacturer estimated that his companys energy management program had saved 7 billion US dollars on fuel costs over 12 years. << Technology for energy management
A willingness to apply state-of-the-art information and automation technology can have a major impact on the success of energy management. Applications such as advanced process control, energy management software packages, and decision support can be used to optimize processes and coordinate energy management activities across functional areas in the plant.
>> Nearly 60 percent of leading manufacturers have integrated electrical automation with their process automation systems. <<
Decision support, giving decision makers and plant personnel access to information about energy and best practices, will have substantial impact. Nearly 75 percent of leading manufacturers feel that real-time performance management has a significant or moderate impact on energy management.
Smart is clever
Sustainability, secure supply, and efficiency are the goals of good power management. The increasing decentralization of electricity generation, not least through the boom in renewable energy, however, confronts electrical transmission and distribution with new challenges. The solution is Smart Grid: this intelligent grid regulates fluctuating energy feeds and offers large-scale industrial consumers attractive optimization potentials.
It happened in broad daylight. For some 50 million people in eastern North America, on August 14, 2003, at 4:10 p.m., the lights literally went out: a gigantic area from Toronto to Detroit and all the way to New York City experienced the biggest blackout in history. Computer screens went dark, trains stopped moving, emergency power sets rattled at high speed in hospitals, Wall Street switched on the emergency lighting. It took 48 hours for electricity to be restored hours in which the most significant economic regions in the world came to a standstill. European grid operators promptly issued reassurances that a disaster like that was unlikely because of the combined system on the old continent. But only two weeks later, the Greater London area faced the same fate. Twenty percent of the generation output went off the grid, followed by a breakdown in the transport system. Four weeks later it was the turn of
All these incidents even the one in America happened under conditions that aggravated the vulnerability of power grids over the past decades: an extreme increase in electricity trading and a concurrent increase in the grid workload, even in normal operations. In the American blackout, an above-average connection of often timeworn air conditioners added to the problem. A dilemma that doesnt just exist in America: right in the low-voltage area in the customers grid there is often a shortage of necessary sensitivity for energy efficiency. An important role is also played here by the growing number of producers of renewable energies. Wind and solar generators unlike biogas power plants number among the so-called fluctuating producers: sometimes they feed a lot, sometimes a little, and occasionally no electricity at all into the grid. The wide distribution and expansion of regulation zones may provide
Following a blackout in August of 2003 in New York, power and the economy needed 48 hours to resume operation.
southern Sweden and Denmark, and five days later it happened in Italy, leaving 50 million residents unsupplied. Three years later, in November of 2006, a subsequent power failure plunged almost all of Western Europe into darkness. The analyses of these blackouts revealed a number of different causes: from human error over bottlenecks in the transmission grid all the way to an incorrectly installed network relay in the case of the London blackout. The consequences in each case were severe: industrial production and communication came to a total standstill. The North American blackouts in particular were precisely documented and examined. The macroeconomic costs of the power breakdown in August of 2003 can be estimated at between seven and ten million dollars. In the case of Europe, a study conducted at the Technical University in Vienna placed the cost of a power breakdown in the service and industrial fields at five to thirty-five euros per non-delivered kilowatthour of electricity.
a certain continuation of solar and wind power. The core of the problem, however, remains. Fluctuating generation places heavy demands on a flexible grid management. In addition to this, energy production is being largely decentralized: smallscale power plants at the municipal level, biogas plants on farms, or photovoltaic plants on the roofs of private homes or industrial facilities are assuming an ever larger proportion of power generation. This is forcing, more and more, the central control of our power grids on all voltage levels up against the limits. A Siemens study confirms the growing proportion of decentralized production capacities up to the year 2020. These must somehow be integrated into the power grid. The answer to these challenges is Smart Grid the intelligent grid. This is a sustainable energy system that independently controls fluctuating energy feeds. This also includes the intermediate storage of generated energy, storing extra
Intelligent power grids, so-called Smart Grids, see to it that load differences in high- and lowvoltage circuits can be better balanced.
power generated during high-production or low-demand periods. To measure, check, and control the generation, transmission, and consumption of electrical energy in grids on all voltage levels, Siemens experts are not only driving forward the development of effective communication and information technologies for the build-up of intelligent power supply networks, solutions are already being applied right now on various products. Examples of these are control systems for the realization of virtual power plants, intelligent consumer data acquisition systems, and smart distribution management systems. The Smart Grid concept is also a serviceable instrument on the low-voltage level in industrial plants. Here, the demand for systemoverlapping communication is especially high, because this area consumes almost 50 percent of the electricity and increasingly produces it on its own in photovoltaic plants, fuel cells, or combined heat and power plants. Until now, the superordinate level network control has
been totally blind with regard to the low-voltage level. At present it can only retrace load profiles. This is like trying to drive a car with your eye focused on the rear-view mirror. This is why both power producers and consumers should be able to communicate both with each other and with network control. This is the only way refrigeration units, air conditioners, process steam generation, or the preparation of process water can be used for grid stabilization, for instance, by intermediately storing excess wind power at a temporarily lower refrigeration temperature or in the provisioning of process water. To be able to carry out process optimizations like these, it is, first and foremost, necessary to improve the transparency of power flow in low-voltage energy distribution all the way to the individual consumers. This way, in combination with the manufacturing and consumption data of other media, such as gas, steam, or, in general terms, other process energies, energy-efficient production and manufacturing processes can be generated.The optimum tool for the creation of optimization strategies is
the powerrate add-on for the Simatic PCS 7 process control system and the Simatic WinCC manufacturing automation system. Powerrate compiles detailed information on energy consumption and cost factors, and then processes it for energy efficiency analyses. Among the challenges for an optimization strategy of this kind are the hidden power gobblers. Fans, refrigeration units, or air conditioners, can, for example, be switched off from time to time without affecting the main process. The load management function of powerrate can be used to combat the overconsumption of hidden power gobblers, for example by automatically turning off auxiliary processes should there be a danger of exceeding limits. This not only lowers energy costs, but also stabilizes the power grids overall, as it helps avoid the provision of peak load energy from the public grid or on-site generators. Especially in energy-intensive industries with complex process technology, such as steel and aluminum production, paper mills, or in the chemical industry, the hidden power gobblers can offer great potential for more efficiently designing the entire process. The use of energysaving motors can increase potentials considerably. Besides these measures, which can be carried out with an ROI in two short years, there are even ways of achieving initial optimizations without investment. By comparing different units or shift crews, power gobblers can be identified when considerable consumption differences appear. We can, for instance, compare similar processes in production with one another: Why does the first shift carry out the same process with greater energy efficiency than the third? says Bruno Opitsch, Sales Manager for Power Monitoring and Control, citing one example. New in application here is the Sentron PAC3200 Power Monitoring device, which precisely measures the power consumption of individual consumers of manufacturing units and sends on the data to the process control or manufacturing automation system. This makes it possible to analyze energy flows and, beyond this, allocate them to specific cost positions with precise causality, thus supporting the improvement of cost-saving potentials, says Opitsch. The aforementioned solutions also serve analysis in conjunction with a comprehensive service Siemens now supplies to its customers. A socalled EnergyHealthCheck is used to examine the entire operation for energy optimization potentials from stem to stern, all the way to an
energy optimization service, which especially examines electric drive systems. Power management systems are supporting here in the examination of the relevant energy processes. This way, the most efficient procedure can be determined for each individual step in the manufacture of products. Beyond this, auxiliary processes during periods of lower energy consumption can also be used to reduce acquisition peaks. With the energy optimization service and powerrate as energy management, not only can energy costs in plants be typically reduced by up to 20 percent, but they also make a major contribution to grid stability. They help to avoid energy peaks, while, under certain conditions, also ascertain grid pollution, such as with the Sentron PAC4200, which measures harmonics. These lead to the unnecessary heating of motors and increased grid losses, Opitsch explains, caused by rpm-regulated drives, computer power supplies, or induction furnaces in ones own facility. Here, as well, Siemens supplies the appropriate solutions, from condensers to filters and all the way to dynamic voltage regulation to stabilize the grid.
Energy-intensive manufacturing industries like the chemical industry can use such tools such as load management to lower their power costs and thus contribute to higher grid stability.
Per kilo CO2 emissions between one and four US dollars GDP
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ... 43 44 ... 102 ... 113 ... 161 162 ... 172 ... 181 182 183
Country Chad Cambodia Afghanistan Mali Switzerland Iceland Norway Sweden ... Brazil Germany ... USA ... Korea ... Russia India ... China ... Zimbabwe Ukraine Uzbekistan
US dollars GDP per kg CO2 55.72 16.24 13.85 12.28 10.56 9.06 9.03 8.59 ... 3.96 3.86 ... 2.28 ... 2.08 ... 0.85 0.82 ... 0.65 ... 0.45 0.43 0.16
Rich and poor in harmony on top. The highest economic performance per one emitted kilogram CO2 is reached by four of the poorest countries in the world: Chad, Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Mali. Four countries belonging to the worlds top ten regarding the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita are right behind them: Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The explanation for all countries' high ranking is identical: none of them have an energy-intensive industry. The poorer countries because of a strong agriculture, the richer countries because a large proportion of their GDP is in the service sector. Germany barely missed a spot in the blue group with 3.9 US dollars GDP per kg CO2 despite efforts towards more energy efficiency. The reason is predominantly the heavy German industry. With 2.3 US dollars GDP per kg CO2 the United States, as the largest energy consumer in the world in absolute numbers, is number 102 on
the world ranking for energy efficient countries of 183. The proportion of added value in the service sector has a positive effect on the efficiency balance sheet, nevertheless the high energy consumption of cars and other vehicles as well as that of air conditioners impedes a higher ranking. The lower end of the efficiency list is mainly occupied by countries of two categories threshold countries, and countries with a former planned economy. In threshold countries the growing industrial production on a global level is making itself noticeable a very high growth rate compared to very low investments in environmentally friendly technologies. Of the four BRIC countries, Russia, India, and China are among those, achieving less than one US dollar GDP per kg CO2. The fourth country, Brazil, is ranked just in front of Germany. Brazils good position is a sign of a highly underestimated efficiency factor: climate. Without a winter season, there is no need for excessive heating.
Countries with a former planned economy in Eastern Europe and Central Asia have mainly inherited their high consumption rates. In a planned economy, energy efficiency was neither important in private households, nor in industrial production. Even to this day the windows of many houses are open in Russias large cities in the winter thermostats are still hard to regulate. In the meantime, persons in charge in Russia are starting to recognize the importance and the economic potential of energy efficiency: investments in better energy utilization are amortized three to five times faster than expenditures for the development of new sources of energy. Most of all, a pilot project in the megacity Yekaterinburg is trendsetting. Siemens was engaged to develop an energy efficiency study to show the potential of saving energy.
Copenhagen, December 18, 2009, at the formal concluding ceremony of the 15th UN Climate Conference, after almost two weeks of hard negotiations, the participating nations declare their approval of the new global climate protection treaty. It replaces the Kyoto protocol, due to expire in 2012, and obligates the industrial countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent below the levels recorded in 1990 by 2020. If all goes well, then even by 40 percent. If it goes badly, only 25 percent and if it goes very badly, there will be no agreement on a climate protection treaty in Copenhagen. But resolute and coordinated measures are urgently needed to curb greenhouse gas emissions and the related global warming, wrote the International Energy Agency (IEA) in the 2008 World Energy Outlook. In their businessas-usual scenario without such measures, the IEA calculates a doubling of the greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere by the end of the century. The consequence would be a global average temperature increase of up to six degrees. The most important cause of this increase: the economic and population development in many threshold countries triggering
a rapidly swelling worldwide energy requirement. The IEA predicts a growth in primary energy consumption of 45 percent by the end of 2030, with more than half of this increase attributable to growth in China and India. The current global economic crisis only marginally reduces this output: vis--vis the prediction of the previous year, the IEA scenario predicted at the end of 2008 only reduced the CO2 emissions expected for 2030 from 42 to 41 gigatons but this estimate is also more than one-third higher than the current level. In any case, the agency hopes it will not come to this scenario: It is within the power of all governments, in both the producing and consuming countries, alone or together, to work toward a situation in which the worldwide energy system is cleaner, more intelligent, and more competitive. Where to begin? Matthew R. Simmons, CEO of the energy consulting firm Simmons & Company International, sees the greatest need for action in the petroleum field, because in the case of this resource, the further growing demand will confront a supply that cannot be arbitrarily increased, but is rather more likely to shrink. Many already tapped deposits are approaching
Global primary energy demand (in million-ton oil units) Oil 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 year 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 Coal Natural gas Biomass Nuclear energy Water power Other renewable energy sources
Keeping-it-up scenario Limitation to 550 ppm CO2 proportion in the atmosphere CO2 reduction 2030: 8.0 gigatons Required investment 20102030 4,100 billion US dollars Reduction of energy costs 20102030 7,000 billion US dollars CO2 reduction 2030 15.3 gigatons Required investment 20102030 5,100 billion US dollars Reduction of energy costs 20102030 5,800 billion US dollars
brings in cost reductions of almost 100 Euros per ton of lowered CO2. Landing on the following places are the energy optimization from electric household appliances (85 Euros/t), better insulation of commercial buildings (68 Euros/t), the optimization of drive systems (65 Euros/t), as well as the modernization of heating and air-conditioning systems in residential buildings (62 Euros/t). The increase of energy efficiency in industrial production also numbers in this study among those strategies that bring in more than they cost. If we were to limit our efforts for CO2 reduction, says the McKinsey study, only to those strategies that, without regard to their ecological components, pay off economically, then these strategies alone would reduce global emissions to the tune of 11 billion tons of CO2 per year by 2030. This is more than one-third of todays worldwide CO2 emissions. The same reduction effect could be doubled if all those strategies, the economic costs of which would not run higher than 10 Euros per ton, were to be additionally implemented.
exhaustion, and in the estimates of capacities in new deposits there are high instability factors; In the Santos Basin off the coast of Brazil, gigantic deposits have been discovered deep under the sea. But how much is really down there wont be known before 2020. Estimates on the largest deposits run from 1.5 to 33 billion barrels a difference for this one single oil field that approximately represents worldwide consumption for an entire year. Not oil alone, but also all fossil energy sources must be equally figured in to develop a climate change strategy, says Steven Chu, winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize for Physics and Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. He is pleading for a market economy incentive system: The most important individual measure would be to establish a price for carbon. The basis of a system like this might be a trade in emission rights, a tax, or something similar. In any case, it would have to be a clear signal, and there should be no way to circumvent this measure. If the incentive system is correctly conceived, both large investment programs as well as small administrative regulations could develop on the
lower levels. Here is just one example of the latter: Energy expert Chu envisions a great promise if in real estate transactions the seller were obligated to provide evidence of electric and gas consumption in past years, not only to create a cost transparency for the purchaser, but also as an investment incentive for property owners willing to sell: One year prior to the sale or rental of their property, building owners would repair leaks, improve insulation, and also install more efficient heating and air-conditioning units, which in turn would increase the attractiveness to prospective purchasers. Both from the ecological and commercial point of view, this would be a highly efficient regulation. According to a current McKinsey study (cf. box) the optimization of insulation and heating systems in residential buildings ranks among the most profitable CO2 reduction measures in the course of the entire life cycle, the financial gain per ton of reduced CO2 is from 30 to 60 Euros above the investment costs. Energy optimization pays off even better, according to this study, in the case of commercially used property: it brings in almost 70 Euros of revenue per ton of CO2 reduction.
Light diodes: the replacement of conventional lighting systems with diodes reduces both CO2 and costs.
More efficient energy utilization can thus make a considerable contribution toward reaching the CO2 goals expected to be set in Copenhagen. Add to this, as a second pillar, the massive expansion of regenerative energies. In just a few years, according to the IEA prediction, these will be the second most important energy source for electric power generation after coal, but before natural gas. For the entire time period until 2030, the World Energy Outlook expects the modern renewable energies (apart from water power) to grow at an average of 7.2 percent per year, more than all the other energy sources. Conventional water power utilization is already greatly expanded, and thus it can be expected to grow at a considerably slower rate. But we can also make unconventional use of water power. Energy investor Simmons, for instance, is betting on the energy potential of the worlds seas: A large and growing proportion of the worlds population lives less than 100 miles from coasts. We should thus seek ways to tap into the energy sources of the sea, tides, and wind. We could also use this energy to propel electric vehicles or manufacture artificial fuels. This way we could make further use of the exist-
ing infrastructure and gain time for the development of more efficient alternatives. An alternative like this is the vision of Nobel physics laureate Chu. He hopes that one day humanity will be able to copy the most efficient form of energy acquisition in nature the one used by plants: Over the long run artificial photosynthesis systems will be able to transform the energy from sunlight into new fuels. We must learn to master this technology before the end of the century. This, however, will certainly not happen before the summit in Copenhagen.
Building as cheap as possible is proving to have a boomerang effect as energy costs keep rising. Operating costs with non-efficient real estate are simply gigantic.
Ullrich Brickmann, Head of Marketing, Solutions for Energy Efficiency, Siemens Building Technologies
The bigger the building and its grounds, the more important a holistic assessment becomes for potential savings. Siemens experts develop a rough analysis, free of charge. It is taken as the basis for an offer and savings calculations within the realm of the performance contract.
It happened in 2004. Problems were mounting sky-high at the Bremerhaven Reinkenheide Hospital in Germany. Thirty years after the hospital was built, the buildings technical equipment was completely dilapidated. Investments were constantly postponed, or they were spent instead on state-of-the-art medical technology rather than on a mundane heating system. The need for investments was turning into the size of Mount Everest, remembers Jrgen Breuer, technical director. A new low-voltage main power distribution system alone would have cost one million Euros. Thats something you cant just pay out of the petty cash. One day Breuer stumbled upon a new concept in the press: Energy Saving Performance Contracting. An external service provider, also known as contractor, modernizes buildings with his own money. These investments are amortized as the client hereby saves an amount of energy which was contractually agreed upon, and uses energy cost-savings to pay off the contractor over a previously fixed amount of time. New equipment without equity capital? That sounded too good to be true, Breuer thought, and started looking for the catch with his team. To no avail, though. This contracting model was perfect for our purposes a win-win sit-
uation. The hospitals management and the supervisory board agreed, and a European call for bids was launched. The most convincing bidder was awarded the job in December 2005: Siemens. Today, the hospital in Reinkenheide is one of the most energy-efficient hospitals in the region. Consumption has dropped over 30 percent and costs reduced by 760,000 Euros per year. The many small air-conditioning systems were combined into a few larger ones and were modernized. Heating was modernized, the building control system optimized, water-saving aerators installed, dishwashers and steam sterilizators exchanged. To be able to implement the new low-voltage main distribution within the realms of the contract as well, the hospital contributed 140,000 Euros per year, as the potential for energy-savings is relatively small for this element. This complex process took over one and a half years, and without very close cooperation with Siemens experts it would have been hard to implement at all. Breuer states: I was constantly involved, together with two or three project members. Walking through the buildings, inspecting equipment, exchanging ideas, discussing developments and processes with physicians and administrators. How long can the
air-conditioning be turned off in the radiology department for modification, when can the cooling devices in the radiation therapy department be exchanged? Rebuilding and reorganization during regular operation means the following for all participating parties: gritting ones teeth. The efforts were worth it. In June 2008 the hospital was awarded the Energiesparendes Krankenhaus (energy-saving hospital) certificate from the German Bund fr Umwelt und Naturschutz, the federation for environmental protection and conservation. Energy Saving Performance Contracting is booming. Since energy costs have been soaring through the roof, this former investor strategy is taking revenge: building as cheap as possible. Whether in schools, hospitals, or public swimming pools investments in building technology were kept low. As energy costs keep rising, this strategy has a boomerang effect, says Ullrich Brickmann, Head of Marketing, Solutions for Energy Efficiency, Siemens Building Technologies. The reason is that operating costs in inefficient buildings are enormous. This is exactly where Energy Saving Performance Contracting applies: It balances investment and operating costs and calculates a sustainable, economic lifecycle cost concept. Average term of contract: eight to ten years. The idea originated in the eighties in North America. Worldwide Siemens is among the leading providers. The company is involved in 120 projects in Germany alone, most of the objects being schools, day-care centers, gymnasia, public buildings, and some administration offices, for instance in the pharmaceutical industry. Rule of thumb: The model pays off starting at 150,000 Euros in energy costs per year. Provided
that the respective building is suitable. If the building is dilapidated, there is nothing to be gained, even with the best contracting model. In addition, for long-term agreements to be made, the ownership circumstances have to be clear long-term. Nevertheless: There is plenty demand, this division is growing every year in double-digit figures. No surprise for Christian Rehtanz. Energy Saving Performance Contracting has advantages for both sides, according to the professor for Power Systems and Power Economics at the University of Dortmund. At least if the provider develops a well-balanced package. Rehtanz adds: To reach an optimum in economical and ecological regard, you need holistic thinking, holistic analyzing, and holistic processing. Nothing is gained by a state-of-the-art pellet heating system buzzing in the basement when the wind is blowing through the walls. Siemens expert Ullrich Brickmann agrees. The concept will not work without a holistic assessment of the entire building. This is often where the rub is. It is not uncommon that backfitting activities downgrade the overall balance sheet. For example, when an overdimensioned heating system is once again installed during the modernization process and is then run in partialload mode with low efficiency. A comprehensive analysis is imperative for the contractor right from the beginning. The first step is a rough analysis: What condition are the building and its technical equipment in, what is the utilization status, how high are consumption costs, and what is the situation of ownership? Siemens detectives for potential energy savings look for realistic pos-
Optimized solutions with Energy Saving Performance Contracting are worthwhile starting at annual energy costs of about 150,000 Euros.
sibilities, measure, assess and inspect: How old are the pumps, how much water flows through the pipelines, how much air do air conditioners have to process? The results are the basis for the bid and savings calculation. Providing the customer shows interest, an exact analysis at full charge is then developed in the second step. A contract draft follows with apportionment of investments and of the savings guarantee. The Siemens teams complex calculation is worth it. For the third time in a row, the company was awarded the prize Best European Energy Service Project in the Commercial Sector by the European Union in February 2009 for an energy concept that saves the UniCredit Group in Milan, Italy, 460,000 Euros per year. Public authorities are in need of such concepts more than anyone else. Stefan Schneider of the German Institute for Urbanistics in Berlin, Germany, conducted a survey in 2008, analyzing the investment needs of municipalities in Germany alone. According to his findings they would have to fork out 704 billion Euros over the next 12 years. Highest expenditures expected are for road construction, estimates the business graduate, but also for schools and public buildings.
Gymnasia and public swimming pools burn up tons of energy as well. With modernized equipment in such buildings alone, municipalities could lower their costs for energy by almost 50 percent. The concepts for financing coming from contracting models could also be interesting for municipalities. Just when there are absolutely no means for investments available and further credits are out of the question, states Schneider. Every necessary investment not made today will lead to disproportionately high follow-up costs for future generations. Depending on individual projects layout, handling them independently could make sense for municipalities as well. Financing investments with local authority loans, for instance, and operating assets autonomously. Prerequisite: The municipality has employees with the essential knowledge at their disposal. Rdiger Lohse from the agency for climate protection and energy of Baden Wrttemberg has performed comparative calculations for many municipalities. His conclusion: The costs for
contracting are equal or ten percent less. And whats more: The expertise needed for an optimization with own means is hard to find, especially in small or middle-sized town councils. General building managers would never be able to run equipment energy-efficiently enough. And how could they? All they get from equipment constructors is an operation manual and a short instruction, thats it. With a contractor on the other hand, they have many years to familiarize themselves with the new equipment and become an expert in operating it. Because contracting is not simply analysis, calculation and reconstruction, it is also maintenance, controlling and operator training. One of the most interesting German contracting projects is underway in Lrrach, Germany. The city with a population of 48,000 has joined forces with the community administration alliance Denzlingen, the district of Lrrach and the city Weil am Rhein. None of us operate buildings in need of modernization that are big enough to be worthwhile for a contractor, says mayor Marion Dammann. But all together we have enough middle-sized and smaller buildings that are stuck right in the middle of techni-
cal renovation, such as schools, kindergartens, and sports centers. First, all involved parties inspected their buildings: How high is consumption, where can we save money? What and how much must be modernized and what will it cost us? Second, a European call for bids was developed and published. Lrrach chose Siemens. The company guaranteed the biggest amount of savings, stated mayor Dammann. A key reason next to runtime, product quality and equipment compatibility. A woodchip installation, a pellet installation, a thermal solar plant, a gas condensing boiler, and three photovoltaic plants are supplying power to the municipal education center and the indoor swimming pool, among others. Dammann: The woodchip installation was one of the biggest projects of its kind. There were some initial problems. The chimney was too low, residents started complaining about smoke and noise. We had to put up with some scolding but Siemens intervened quickly and took care of the problem. And the way it looks, in 2008, the first year of the contract, Lrrach has saved 212,000 Euros, right according to plan.
Wireless wins
Bluetooth for hands-free telephones in cars, WLAN for the mobile Internet, HSUPA for the transmission of large amounts of data to cell phones wireless communication has long since found its way into everyday life. Now it is developing into a megatrend in automation engineering one of the fastest-growing sectors of the electrical technology and electronics industry. But there is a considerable difference between supplying a notebook with data at the airport and the wireless control of a 140-metricton tower in a hot, vibrating and dusty steel mill, or automating a high-bay warehouse the size of a soccer field.
The heat is murderous. The liquid metal gleams like a sunset over the Pacific. The building-high furnace pours its glowing contents into the crucibles. Directly after tapping, subsequent processes, using additives or inert gases, produce steel with the required specifications. This is a familiar procedure in many steel mills. The special feature at Swiss Steel AGs Emmenbrcken mill, however, is invisible: the transmission of data for process control takes place wirelessly. Cables have outlived their usefulness: The wireless transmission of measurements and control signals is a mega-trend in automation, says Gerd-Ulrich Spohr, head of innovation and technology in the Strategy Division of Siemens Industry Automation.
stations. The position monitoring and control of the approximately 140-metric-ton tower is likewise a part of the wireless Siemens network. The liquid state of the steel comes to an end in the up to 11-meter-long molds. Here it solidifies and is then sent over conveyor belts to the rollers. They turn the still red-glowing cubes into saleable semi-finished products profiles or wires. In automation, of course, we only use Industrial Wireless LAN IWLAN for short when it provides solid advantages, says Spohr. This happens primarily in three scenarios: firstly, when information and control commands have to be transmitted over long distances or reach inaccessible positions. Secondly, when we are dealing with movable objects such as floor conveyors, cranes, or container carriers. Thirdly, when an existing installation has to be quickly
Data transmission to control and monitor steel production and further processing at Swiss Steel from the combination of raw materials all the way to the rolling mills takes place over wireless systems with IWLAN technology.
In the Swiss town of Emmenbrcken, scrap metal is used to produce high-quality steel some 600,000 tons a year. The process begins with smelting. Enormous externally heated smelting furnaces heat the scrap metal over three electrodes to 1,650 degrees Celsius until it has liquefied. The experts at Swiss steel know the composition of most of the supplied scrap. While the furnace is being loaded, radio waves transmit the information on the composition and weight of the scrap load to the operating system in the control station. Likewise, all the automatic transport and loading procedures are wirelessly monitored. This means that the control station is able to determine, analyze and control the consumption and storage supply of the more than ten different types of scrap at any time. The transport control inside the mill also operates wirelessly. The heart of the facility is a distributor, a tower with cranes, which conveys the ton-heavy crucible to the various processing
retrofitted and there are few possibilities for laying further cables. The wireless control of individual components in the process chain was nothing new for the Swiss steelmakers. They were already moving the scrap carriers that transport the raw material from the scrap warehouse to the smelting furnace over an internal network. However, they had their doubts about the reliability of the old system. The company tested the new system with ScalanceW components using the Siemens Sinema E test program. The important thing was to determine the right number and position of the transmitting stations to eliminate any gaps in the network. The result of the test series was impressive: apart from a few readjustments, the system was ready to go. This considerably shortened the project run time. The production conditions in a steel mill confront man and machine with huge challenges: smoke, dust, heat and powerful vibrations have
a strong effect on electronic components. In this adverse environment safety aspects have absolute priority. The failure of individual elements in the process chain here can lead to serious consequences for workforce and materials. In Emmenbrcken these harsh environmental conditions have no influence on the Scalance W components thus far there have been no breakdowns of the more than 60 individual components. This is the only way to go, explains Spohr. Wireless must function just as reliably as transmission by wire. And it does. This was a different story just a few years ago. Meanwhile, however, IWLAN systems are so reliable that they can also be used for emergency turnoff functions. The network is safeguarded by two frequency bands placed at some distance from each other. If there is interference on one band, the devices automatically utilize the second frequency band, Spohr assures us. Besides this, the system is aligned so that mobile, safety-relevant devices stop in case of radio interference and especially if there is radio failure. This safely eliminates the possibility of a floor conveyor going haywire, imperiling both workforce and operating equipment. This was also an important point for the Swedish steel concern SSAB Svensk Stal. In the Swedish town of Borlnge, it has equipped its 15,000square-meter high-bay warehouse equivalent to the area of two soccer fields with a Scalance W wireless Ethernet. A prime example of meaningful use with mobile objects: in a high-bay warehouse: forklifts and floor conveyors work together on the floor. The identification of the storage positions and the stock in storage is mostly done over various types of labels. The Swedish concern commissioned the Siemens solution partner Microc Electro AB to implement a new system to secure the fully automated logistics in Borlnge. The special feature of this commission: the implementation with the use of Siemens components was to take place with the facility in full operation somewhat like open-heart surgery. This daring undertaking was a complete success. The transport jobs in the warehouse are now done by overhead cranes, driverless forklifts and floor conveyors fully automated and controlled by the Scalance W IWLAN system. The complete communication between cranes, conveyors and the storage positions is wireless. Safety was also one of the most important points here. Only a few years ago it was impossible to connect safety signals and wireless communication to one another in a project this size. Things are different today: floor conveyors, cranes and
fork lift trucks receive their commands by radio, telling them which coil to bring to which storage position by which route. This eliminates collisions with serious consequences or, by comparison, merely putting the goods in the wrong place. Toward this end, the system developers linked the commodities management system in the warehouse with the safety system, which receives the necessary signals over sensors on the floor. When the safety system triggers an emergency stop, these commands are wirelessly transmitted to the mobile units. Wireless systems like the one in Emmenbrcken, Switzerland, or Borlnge, Sweden, also pay off economically. In Borlnge, for instance, the wireless communication contributes to a much more efficient utilization of storage capacities.
Scalance W industrial wireless LAN products from Siemens are applicable for a wide variety of mobile uses.
More efficient, better organized and safer this is the way the Swedish clients describe the benefits of the new system. The initial investment in a wireless system has about the same price tag as a cabled system, says Siemens technology expert Spohr. If we include the greater planning effort for a cable system and the cabling costs, wireless is actually cheaper. However, there are arguments against the use of IWLAN in the automation process. The most common one is that as long as the energy transmission is conducted over cable connections, the control can also be conducted by cable. Thats basically correct, Spohr counters, but the argument doesnt hold water when there are limited installation capacities for cable or truly inaccessible positions. For the future, Spohr envisions very different application options for wireless automation, such as uses in conjunction with energy harvesting generating electricity from sources like ambient temperature, vibrations, or air currents. There are, for example, huge differences in ambient temperature in the vicinity of a reactor. These can be harnessed for energy generation, and we could
At the Emden production site VW uses IWLAN in the production process for more productivity and market competitiveness.
operate a sensor, says Spohr. Vibrations or dynamic load from construction components or floors are similarly effective for generating electricity through miniature power plants. Energy generators like these help avoid using cable or battery-connected electricity supply for IWLAN systems. Energy harvesting provides the prerequisites for energy-autarchic sensors and sensor networks or autonomous little final controlling devices, says Spohr enthusiastically, This has great potential, and research on it is proceeding full speed ahead.
South Korea is going ahead in leaps and bounds with the innovative utilization of environmental technology, not least to cover the gargantuan energy demand of its capital Seoul. Wind power units are being installed, even in particularly remote areas like mountain chains.
Tradition meets modernity: Just like GyeongBok Palace (left), the N Seoul Tower, with a height of 133 meters is one of the main attractions of the South Korean capital.
There are many ways for a country to celebrate a major birthday. With fireworks, like the United States on Independence Day, or with a formal state occasion like the one held on the German Unity Day, or with the kind of military parade that takes place in France on July 14, or perhaps with the announcement of a major economic reform, which was how Korean President Lee Myung-bak marked the occasion. During the festivities on August 15, 2008, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the republic, he announced the greening of the country. He spoke of his plan to make private households and industrial sites more independent of fossil and atomic energy sources. And he sparked enthusiasm for the expansion of wind and solar energy. Because that proved so appealing to both the business community and the population as a whole, less than half a year later South Koreas government upped the ante: to 50 trillion Won, some 38 billion US dollars. Thats how much the country will be investing in environmental projects over the next four years. This eco-offensive has made South Korea, along with Japan, the first country to implement the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) with a Green New Deal (cf. box p. 43) to confront the economic crisis and focus on sustainability and environmental protection with the aid of government investment programs.
Economic factors played a major part in this. Because the global slump has not spared even a wonderland of growth like South Korea. To justify the investment program, Prime Minister Han Seung-soo stated: We have to react to the global economic crisis with quick-working measures. One sore point for the country is the current situation in the long-time growth engine and success guarantor export. This years figures are currently some 20 percent lower than those of the previous year. Top economic experts are already predicting that Korean Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2009 might shrink for the first time since the Asian crisis of 1997. This is why the environmental program is now accordingly ambitious. All in all, the Korean government has brought together 36 programs under this umbrella. These include, among others, two million new energy-saving buildings, recycling measures, and the preservation of the Korean forests, as well as the improvement of water quality in the countrys four largest rivers. 960,000 new jobs are to be created through these investment projects alone, including 140,000 as early as this year primarily in the building industry. The planned investments to reduce CO2 emissions alone track transport systems, environment-friendly cars, and buildings are intended to correspond to 1.2 percent of GDP.
Theres a lot to do: the energy efficiency of the Korean economy may be three times as high as the one in China but it is only half as high as in places like Germany. In any event, the ecological benchmark for the tiger state of South Korea is not the huge Chinese neighbor in the north, but rather the industrial nations of Europe. Forty years ago, still an insignificant factor on the global economic landscape, far distant from all trade routes, with fish and real hair wigs as its major export goods, today South Korea has boosted itself to position 13 among the most economically powerful nations of the world. Its 49 million inhabitants currently bring in GDP of some 20,000 US dollars per capita. The Presidents mid-term goal to advance to position 7 in the world economic ranking list makes it necessary to maintain at least the same standard as the other developed nations in all areas from the social system all the way to environmental protection. One especially important point of orientation is Germany, because the South Koreans feel connected to this country through a number of ties, including political misfortune. Just as Germany was divided after World War II between east and west, Korea was severed between north and south. Economic success is another aspect: South Koreas advancement to the status of an industrial nation since the 1970s was much like West Germanys spectacular economic miracle two decades previously. Then there are the cultural bridges: Korea is traditionally one of the most important foreign markets for German books, in translation of course. Such reputed German virtues as industriousness, ambition, punctuality, and a strong regard for quality are also very highly respected in Korea. The same goes for German corporations. Jrgen Woehler, Chairman of the German-Korean Chamber of Commerce in Seoul, regards the greening of the tiger country as a huge opportunity for the German economy. Without any oil and gas resources of their own, but with huge major cities and colossal amounts of recyclable waste, South Korea could be an ideal marketplace for German companies in the green industries. Some have already arrived there: Solarworld, headquartered in Bonn, put up a solar module factory last year together with a South Korean joint-venture partner. Schott Solar in Bavaria is also already active in South Korea, as is the Frisian wind turbine manufacturer Enercon. The first German biogas and bio-recycling firms have likewise initiated business contacts with the Koreans.
Others have been there somewhat longer in fact, a half-century longer: in 1959 Siemens received its first large order from Korea, to supply telephone exchanges. To keep pace with the rapid economic growth in Korea and its progress in information technology, Siemens opened a liaison office in the country in 1967 and has continued to expand its business activities in the country since then. At present, Siemens Korea employs some 1,500 people at sites in Seoul, Bundang and Gyeongju.
On 580,000 square meters, the solar energy complex in Gimcheon City produces enough energy for 8,000 households.
This way, Siemens supplies industrial automation and motion control systems to the car manufacturer Hyundai. Korean steel producers have placed several major orders to equip steel mills and casting plants. And in the fire-protection systems area, Siemens is one of the leading suppliers in Korea. These and many other orders led to a turn-over of more than a billion euros with its customers in Korea in fiscal year 2008. With highly qualified employees and innovative solutions, Siemens will reinforce the competitive edge of its customers in Korea and contribute to the further strengthening and improvement of industry in the nation, says Josef Meilinger, CEO of Siemens Korea. A strong Korean economy for Chamber of Commerce Chairman Jrgen Woehler, this is also an important aspect in the countrys eco-
offensive, because if South Koreas largest concerns pick up on the state initiative, a sizeconditional cost advantage will develop very quickly in the country, thus making investments in environmental technologies profitable. There is no question of their doing this, because the largest conglomerates in the country, such as Hyundai, Samsung and LG are already availing themselves of a wide national base, similar to that of a state, in virtually every industrial and service area. But only the branches of these corporate networks that are also active on the international stage are known outside the country. These include consumer electronics in the case of Samsung, or automotive manufacturing at Hyundai. The export-driven economic miracle of the 1970s and 1980s largely came about through a close cooperation between the government and the large conglomerates. With its eco-initiative, Korea is now continuing the success formula already proven many times in the past: starting small as an outsider, and then conquering the world market through tenacity and quality. Both in shipbuilding and in the automotive industry, it took a giant step from low-price site to recognized global player. In consumer electronics, the two Korean concerns Samsung and LG have made the giant leap into the global Champions League. And there are signs that the largest South Korean firms have seen opportunities in the worldwide anxiety over environmental pollution to open up new global markets. For example, Nam Sang-tae, the Board Chairman of the worlds thirdlargest shipbuilder, Daewoo, says that his firm is currently investing in the research and development of ships without CO2-intensive drive systems. In many of their new eco-investments, many of the Korean concerns are placing their bets on Siemens solutions. Here, Siemens is the market leader in the business of industrial steam turbines that improve the energy efficiency of industrial plants. Siemens technology is in operation in many of the projects designed to make the newly developing International Business District of Songdo the first certified ecological model city worldwide. The companys own Energy & Environment Solution (EES) team is supporting project developer Gale International
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announces the Green New Deal.
toward the goal of acquiring the coveted LEED certificate which stands for Leadership and Energy and Environment Design. For Koreas largest retailer, Sinsegae, Siemens is now optimizing three consumer markets with a view toward improving their energy balance. Some of the measures being implemented include solutions for more efficient refrigeration and more economical lighting systems. And theres plenty of activity in the public transportation area as well. An ELFA municipal bus equipped with a hybrid drive system from Siemens is already being test-driven on Koreas streets. The technology stands for significantly lower emissions and 30 percent less fuel consumption. A project with a powerful potential, because all of Koreas major cities are planning to restructure their public local transport networks toward a reduction of CO2 emissions. At Incheon International Airport the latest state-of-the-art technology from Osram provides energy-saving daylight-like illumination. Beyond this, Korean Rail has ordered a total of
Stimulation of the world economy, job crea tion, and protection of the weaker sections of the population Reduction of CO2 emissions, protection of the environment, combating water scarcity Combating extreme poverty
Local transportation and trains Energy savings in rural communities and schools Environment-friendly vehicles and clean energy Environment-friendly living spaces Restoration of river landscapes 0.4 1.5
7 5.8
Koreas largest investments in conjunction with the Green New Deal (in billions of US dollars)
10.5
28 electric high-performance locomotives from Siemens for 2009. The heart of the largest photovoltaic power plant in the country also came from Siemens: last year in Gimcheon, Siemens supplied Samsumg Everland with a solar energy complex on an area of 58 hectares, which, with an installed output of 20 megawatts, is designed to produce 26,000 megawatt hours of energy per year. This is equivalent to the electricity requirement of 8,000 households in the region, and, compared with a conventional fossil power plant, reduces CO2 emissions by 17,000 metric tons annually. This complex was equipped by Siemens with 12 Sinvert inverters. Plants like these transform unstable direct current from a multitude of solar collectors into stable alternating current, which is then fed into the grid. Digital energy observation and control systems were likewise delivered by Siemens to Gimcheon. The South Koreans are still behind the German manufacturers in environmental technology,
but the country is rapidly catching up. In the course of this development, it is repeating a masterstroke that took place forty years earlier: in 1969, the World Bank asserted that Korea was not capable of maintaining a steel industry of its own. The planned financial aid for the construction of a steel mill by the Posco Company was then canceled. The Koreans implemented the project on their own and were successful: Posco became the engine for the South Korean ship and automotive industry, and is meanwhile the fourth-largest steel manufacturer in the world. And it is likewise on the green path: the first Posco steel mill uses the so-called Finex technology, jointly developed with Siemens. In steel production, this saves on the work and energy-intensive sintering and coking steps, which in turn drastically reduces the environmental burden and significantly increases efficiency.
Bright prospects
Float glass is a material in very high demand. And not only in the construction industry, but in photovoltaics as well as an essential constituent of solar modules. With modern process technology from Siemens, costs for production and further processing of float glass can be reduced.
Siemens process control systems have been put to use in the solar industry for many years.
As if by a ghosts hand the small applicator moves across the glass pane. A black mass comes gushing out of a nozzle and is spread in the form of an even black stripe along the edges of the rectangular pane. Once the rectangle is complete, the pane is moved to the next station in the process. Grippers carefully press another pane onto the first sheet with the black mass. The whole thing looks like a glass sandwich one of the two panes can produce electricity, the other one serves as coverage. Meanwhile, a new pane is already inside the applicator station, the nozzle has almost finished its round. Speed, control, and precision this is what comes to most visitors minds, says Tobias Neff, product manager at Lenhardt Maschinenbau GmbH. We have cycle times of 30 seconds, Neff explains. The degree of tolerance during application of the black mass a synthetic material that melts when heated is about 0.2 millimeters. For a die-cast synthetic material application this is sensational. The Lenhardt corporation situated in the Black Forest in Germany belongs to the Bystronic Glass Group and is considered to be one of the worlds leading providers of glass processing systems. This is where the core of the project lies a project which started a few years ago with an idea and is now ready for production. Somehow it reminds me of insulation glass for a window, Neff once thought while looking at a so-called glass-glass thin-film module for solar energy. Assembly is in fact very similar. To generate a thin-film photovoltaic module, a glass pane is coated with semi-conductors and metals in a very complex process in several working
steps. The glass pane is then covered with another glass pane and laminated with a plastic sheet. The modules interior must be completely sealed off from surrounding air and humidity. This is very similar to a common isolation glass used in private homes. To maintain the warming air film in the modules interior, the space between the two panes must be kept gastight during the modules entire lifetime. This is what sparked an idea with Neff. Something that is built like an isolation glass can surely be manufactured like one, too. The Lenhardt manufacturing company uses inline processing with Thermo Plastic Spacer technology (TPS) for its isolation glass production. Other than in conventional manufacturing, there is no aluminum profile to separate the two glass panes and seal the interspace. Thanks to TPS, the aluminum profile has become unnecessary, Neff explains the hot black mass sprayed on the pane in form of a thin track by the applicator. As usual, the knowledge is in the details. The challenge lies in ensuring the same exact coating for every application and running the process completely in sync and with highest precision. In a procedural regard for the Lenhardt production lines, the only difference between isolation glass production and TPS thin-film lamination is that a glass substrate with semiconductors is grouted with a cover pane instead of two identical panes. The impression of highest precision is not unrealistic, but is an obvious one: Siemens has further developed TPS technology for applications
in manufacturing for photovoltaics regarding control engineering based on the Motion Control System Simotion D. The increased operation of Motion Control functionalities such as cam disks, electric lobes, and constant velocity increases production quality and repeatability of processes. It also simplifies machine operation and increases productivity. The implemented solution works with Simotion D 445, the multi-axis system from Siemens. Herewith Simotion functionality is directly integrated into the Sinamics drive systems control modules that control the applicator. After all, the TPS sealing machines have up to nine axes that all have to be synchronized. TPS sealing will play a major role in lowering costs in production of photovoltaics Bystronic Glass and Siemens are both convinced. This is very important for an industry that is often criticized for only being productive thanks to governmental support. A fully automated inline process, the enabler for TPS technology is the most significant factor for cost reduction. So far, lamination of solar modules has been a very time-consuming and elaborate process. Savings achieved with an inline process can add up to millions in photovoltaics mass-production sites. Siemens has been active in the float glass industry for many years. Aside from implementing new procedures that have been developed in cooperation with Bystronic Glass, upstream processes in glass production bear lots of potential for increased efficiency in glass production.
Modernizing production line II, for instance, in the British Pilkington NSG Group led to an elevation of daily production from 550 to 810 tons of glass. This production line in Weiherhammer, Germany, manufactures low-iron float glass, predominantly used in the solar industry. Before modernization the production line had been up and running for longer than average 17 years in a row. Within the realm of the cold repairs Siemens exchanged the operator system for the melting furnace, the float bath and cooling units with Simatic PCS 7 operating and monitoring systems. Implementation of this process control system allows consistent float glass quality and a flexible manufacturing process. Additionally, the control system reduces energy consumption and minimizes pollutant emissions. Siemens technology was implemented at the end of the production line as well. This is where cold glass panes are cut and hardened. The expert in cutting glass, Grenzbach, fitted this part of the production line with automation and drive technology from Siemens. Now, at Pilkington, the hopes are for a production line runtime as long as the one before the cold repair 17 years. A very long time, enough for many more Siemens technologies to be put to use.
Dynamic markets
The world market for photovoltaics is on the increase. In 2008 solar plants with a capacity of more than 4,500 megawatt peak (MWp) were installed three times as high as two years ago. Last year, newly installed photovoltaic plants in Germany alone with 1,500 MWp had a capacity equal to the plants connected to the network world-wide in 2006. Germany is not only a front-runner when it comes to installing photovoltaic plants, the German solar industry leads the world market as well: About 30 percent of solar modules produced worldwide are made in Germany. The solar headquarters is in Saxony-Anhalt in the so called Solar Valley. Several thousand people work in companies in the solar industry in the traditional industrial region Bitterfeld-Wolfen. Companies with more than 42,000 employees belong to the solar industry in Germany. Research and development is as intensive as the competition on the German solar market: In 2008 investments of over 200 million Euros were made, and more than 50 research institutes are involved in solar research and development. Driven by ambitious climate goals, the impending end of oil resources, and, spurred on by the need for environmental protection, the solar industry will continue to grow. This is the result of an analysis conducted by the German Bundesverband der Solarwirtschaft (Federation of Solar Industry) and the Swiss bank Sarasin. They anticipate double-digit growth rates for the solar industry by 2012.
dollars have been earmarked for investments in solar technology. Medium-term, investments in photovoltaics will strongly increase in other regions of the world as well. China has just announced the construction of the worlds largest solar power plant in the countrys northwest. In Abu Dhabi the peninsulas first photovoltaic power plant is just being built: It is expected to ensure the power supply for the emissions-free ecological model municipality, Masdar City.
Economic challenges
The solar markets bright prospects are leading to a fundamental change of the industrys structure. The more solar energy increases in importance, the more important the market will become for players in other industries as well. Companies active in the glass, chemical, or semiconductor industry are stepping into the fast-growing solar industry. Siemens is the ideal partner along the entire value chain from silicon, glass, and solar module production to solar energy generation most of all regarding the challenges that the solar industry will face in terms of growth and globalization. Siemens is enhancing the still rather young solar industry with experience from other well-established industries and can provide support in developing new markets by utilizing Siemens global setup.
New technologies
Growth will be especially high in production rates of thin-film solar modules with specialized semiconductor materials on glass. Their market volume will increase from twelve to 23 percent by 2012. Thus far, wafer technology is still number one yet the large amounts of solar-grade silicon needed are very energy-intensive in production. The biggest potential for photovoltaics will be found in Southern Europe and in the United States in the next few years. The US Solar Industry Association SEIA is expecting a strong growth boost due to the economic stimulus package passed in February. Seven billion US
Efficient water treatment plants from Siemens are the reason why the insular city-state of Singapore, located between Malaysia and Indonesia, has enough clean water to drink and to play.
South of Malaysia is where the lion city lies the literal meaning of Singapore. Its emblem is Merlion, a legendary figure and a mixture of lion and fish. The lions head is a symbol of strength and fearlessness, the fish's body represents the origin from and the connection to the sea. The small state is living up to its name: Singapore has developed into one of the most influential economic centers in Asia over the last few decades; its container harbor is said to be the biggest in the world. The Southeast Asian metropolis is a land of services and high-tech, 6,000 multinational companies and 500 financial institutes call it their home. Unfortunately, the otherwise so very successful insular city-state is having trouble supplying its 4.8 million inhabitants and its industry with enough drinking and process water. Flowing sources of water are, common for islands, not worth mentioning, and even though there are 15 reservoirs spread over 700 sq km, only about half of the city-states own demand can be met. For this reason children are brought up with a strong consciousness for this scarce resource. My four-year-old daughter uses a glass when she brushes her teeth. Brushing her teeth under running water is out of the question, explains Lim Chiow Giap, director of the Public Utilities
Board (PUB). If I leave the water running, she starts yelling at me immediately. That's just the attitude we are looking for. Every scholar must learn and be aware: If Im using water, every drop counts." And every drop is expensive, too. For many decades almost half of the daily water demand was imported from Malaysia, that's how scarce water is here. The dependency on external supply is still there, a fact that causes the government headaches. The first water treaty with Kuala Lumpur will expire in 2011. Singapore has been looking for alternative water supply strategies for ten years now. Within this process, the city-state is investing large sums in technologies to win drinking water from seawater and in surface water treatment. Siemens supplied the respective technology. In the district of Kranji, for instance, wastewater has been recycled to drinking water in a water recycling plant from Siemens since 2002 NEWater, as named by project planners in Singapore. About 80 million liters of water are recycled in Kranji per day. More than 200 companies use the water being recycled here. And the number of customers is continuously rising.
As the economic metropolis on the Sea of China continues to thrive in importance and size, so will its water demand.
We have many more customers than initially expected, says Harry Seah of PUB. We expect the number to rise to 30 percent of all companies by 2012." The most particular part of the water recycling process in Kranji is the pretreatment technology. The Siemens solution differentiates itself from those of other suppliers with this innovative process, states Jagannath Rao, Senior Vice President, Siemens Water Technologies International Business. Low-pressure membranes are used within this process. At first, several straw-like membrane fibers are bundled into filter modules, in groups of four row, and are connected with a common bus to a rack. Several racks are then dipped into a pool of waste water. Harmful substances in the water, such as aerosols, bacteria, and germs cling to the membrane's surface as it is not permeable for such undissolved substances, explains Rao. Reverse osmosis membranes are used next to filter out the remaining harmful substances. Similar to the first filtering process, only clean water molecules can pass through the membranes, harmful substances remain. In a final step the filtered water is disinfected with UV rays. This is to make absolutely sure that all remaining orga-
nisms have been filtered out and crystal-clean drinking water is the end product. Siemens offers us a broad realm of promising technology, says Harry Seah of PUB. "A number of them will have a major influence on realizing our goal here in Singapore: continuously improving water supply and thus sustainably securing it." Last but not least, these technologies are accounting for the growth of another industry in the former British colony on the Malacca Straits. Next to its position as an influential center of commerce connecting the Asian-Pacific and European economy, Singapore is also the global competence center for water technology. The water industry was recognized as the technology of the future here earlier than anywhere else. For this reason the most pressing water questions of the 21st century are discussed nowhere more intensely than in Singapore: How can the world's population be supplied with clean water environmentally friendly, efficiently, and cost-effectively? The Siemens process has advantages in all three points, as the recycling process is cheaper and more cost-effective than other approaches such as sea water desalination. It's no suprise that Kranji is often visited by entire delegations from the entire world.
Their questions are also being answered by many scientists conducting research on-site for Siemens in the Water Hub, a network of Singapores leading research centers and authorities, among them the Nanyang University, the Research and Development Authority A*Star and the local water authority. Siemens has invested about 35 million Euros to install its global headquarters for research and development of water technologies right here. Singapore's authorities and research centers have recognized the acuteness of water management and innovative ideas earlier than others and are very proactive when it comes to their sponsoring, says Charles Gordon, CEO of Siemens Water Technologies. This is why Singapore is such an ideal location for us. 400 people from different institutes and companies from all over the globe are looking for new possibilities to meet global water scarcity in Singapore's Water Hub. There is not enough drinking water in many parts of the earth as it is. Every fifth person on earth has access to less than 20 liters of drinking water per day the minimum amount a person needs to drink, wash and cook, according to the UN. Even in regions where water should be sufficient there are often
problems because of lacking infrastructure. The precious resource can thus often not be transported into households. According to UN studies, about 1.6 billion people live in areas dealing with an economic water scarcity situation. It's time to come up with solutions. "We are currently working on eight projects and 20 processes at the same time, ranging from simulation of current dynamics to further developing our membrane technology," explains Rdiger Knauf, responsible for global research and development at Siemens Water Technologies. Thirtyfive Siemens employees have already registered 12 new patents in the first six weeks on site. Weve already rented the building next door it's getting quite crowded around here. In Singapore, all innovative activities by Siemens will be bundled and further developed for the Asian region, to optimally complement existing research and development scenarios in the US, Germany, and Australia. Another reason for further developing Singapore as a hub for water treatment technologies is to bring products developed and tested in the US and Europe to the Asian market more quickly. To do this, Siemens has put together a team of 160 employees to of-
fer products for municipal and industrial water technology for Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan, India, and the Philippines all based in Singapore.
usage per cubic meter of water is reduced from 10 kilowatt hours in common plants to 1.5 kilowatt hours. Even the very best technologies on the market today still need twice that amount of energy.
Recycling surface water is only one part of the picture for Siemens employees when it comes This is nothing less than a breakthrough, to Singapore's water supply. Another important head of Siemens Water Technologies Charles project is obtaining drinking water from the sea. Gordon is very excited for his team and its sucTo speed up development, cess. This technology will the city council has issued lead to more extensive usage 300 million US dollars in reof desalination on a global 80 million liters search grants for innovative level in the future. of drinking water are enterprises. During Singaproduced every day by pore International Water Surely for Singapore as well. Week, an international As a small island city-state, wastewater processtradeshow occuring for the we have no other choice but ing plants in Kranji. first time in June 2008 for to invest in state-of-the-art high performance indusinfrastructure and technotries, Singapores governlogy to make our city worth ment awarded 3 million US dollars in research living in, says Tony Tan, acting prime minister grants for the first time ever for the best techfor many years and one of the key figures in nology which cuts the costs for desalination in Singapores 40 years of rising from a third-world half. Siemens received the prize. Scientists had country to the top. "Leading international techdeveloped a concept where desalination is not nology corporations like Siemens have played a dependent on energy-intensive heating and eva- significant part in this process." poration anymore. Sea water is, rather, channeled through an electrical field. This way energy
In the NEWater purification plant, surface water is first passed through ultra-thin membranes, then cleaned in a reverse osmosis process, and subsequently treated with germicidal UV rays. Resulting in high-quality drinking water.
The city of Nuremberg is known for its lebkuchen (a type of gingerbread), its Christkindlesmarkt and its bratwurst and to insiders as the origin of innovative transportation systems. The latter for almost 175 years: On December 7, 1835, Germanys first steamdriven train traveled from Nuremberg to the neighboring city of Frth. In the summer of last year, the Franconian metropolis again proved its cutting edge in German railway technology. The trains of the new U3 metro line were the first in the entire nation to run without a driver. The U3 metro lines premiere in the Franconian city not only featured driverless operation. It is also the first metro line in the world where both driver-operated and driverless trains share the
The development of electric railways goes back many years in Siemens history. In 1881 Werner von Siemens presented the worlds first electric tramcar in Berlins Lichterfelde quarter. It measured five meters in length and was able to transport 20 people up to 40 kilometers per hour (left). Fully automated metros operate in one minute intervals, in Bangkok, for example (right).
driveway to avoid the tedious search for a parking lot and stressful traffic on the roads. Automated metro systems further allow lightrail transit system operators to react more flexibly to special events that take place in the city. Tradeshows, concerts and major events of any kind attract the masses. And most people want to use public transportation. Fast, comfortably, without a wait, and, most of all, safely. Further, operators can react more easily to the changing demand during different times of day with automated rail systems. Intervals between trains are longer at night, while the metros run at highest frequency during peak traffic times. People arent forced to pay as close attention
same tracks. Nurembergs U2 metro line, still conventionally operated up to now, is scheduled for automation this year. This will take place without interrupting ongoing metro operation. Nobody has done anything like this ever before, says Georg Trummer, Siemens project manager in Nuremberg. This transition is stirring interest worldwide, as it sets a prime example for the gradual change from manually operated to driverless systems. The transition to automatic operation now makes it possible to run trains in Nuremberg every 90 seconds during peak times. That is twice as frequent as during conventional operation. During rush hour in the morning and in the evening, when thousands of people commute from their homes to downtown, waiting at crowded station platforms has become obsolete. The result: Many Nurembergers are leaving their car in the
to train schedules and to remember departure times, says Bernd Raubal of the Institute of Railway and Transportation Engineering, University of Stuttgart. This is just one way of convincing more passengers to switch from car to rail. Demand determines supply, Bernd Raubal confirms. Bernhard E. Nickel, department head at the Association of German Transportation Companies, agrees: Customer surveys prove that travel time is of major importance. Passengers want to get from A to B quickly. At the same time, they are asking for highest reliability and punctuality. This demand is met best when trains are run at frequent intervals. Nevertheless, the new driverless trains in Nuremberg took some getting used to in the beginning. Being used to metro drivers for years, people
wondered if driverless trains could even work at all. What would happen in case of a disruption? How smoothly would station entry and exit go? No problem at all that is Wilfried Matthees credo, project manager, Rail Automation at Siemens in Braunschweig, Germany. When driverless trains started to roll last summer in Nuremberg, front-row seats were taken immediately, says Matthee. Instead of a driver, an attendant is now on board every second or third metro train. This bears many advantages for passengers. An attendant can actually leave the train at a stop as opposed to the driver. He may point a passenger in the right direction or help elderly passengers with their luggage, Matthee explains. The technical heart of the automated metro is the automatic train supervision system. It controls and monitors the entire process. A tightlyknit network of sensors ensures safety at all stations. These sensors recognize humans or large objects on station tracks immediately and are not set off by pieces of paper or plastic bags
Siemens is a pioneer in the area of driverless rail systems. For many years, they have been an integral part of public transportation systems in many European cities: since 1983 in Lille, since 1993 in Toulouse, and since 1998 in Paris, all in France. The French capital is also the home of the Siemens competence center for driverless systems. Thanks to its many years of experience, Siemens has become the market leader in this technology. Up to now, cities have usually decided in favor of driverless trains when building a new line. The modernization of existing lines poses a much bigger potential, though. Although today more than 28 million people use public transportation in Germany alone, and thus avoid about 18 million car rides per day, this figure has yet to be significantly increased to noticeably reduce traffic congestion on the roads. Traveling by car is still absolute mayhem in many cities. The forecast situation in Asia is even more precarious. While there are around 600 cars per 1,000 inhabitants in Germany, in China the ratio
Thanks to Siemens automated rail systems, more people than ever before can be moved in the Chinese capital Beijing as well. The citys downtown area is relieved of traffic congestion and air pollution is lessened (left). New York has a highly developed system of metro lines. Nevertheless, only since the employment of state-of-the-art control technology have high frequencies during rush-hour times become a reality (right).
flying around. In hazardous situations a train just pulling in is automatically stopped or even delayed before leaving the previous station. Further, the automatic drive system helps save energy. Acceleration, traveling speed and brake applications can be optimized. The automation system delivers just the right amount of electrical energy to stick to the schedule, Matthee explains. Following a modular design concept, further energy storage components may be integrated as well (see box). The Vicos OC operations control technology controls all relevant processes. This relieves employees of routine tasks, and reduces errors in control and monitoring. Additionally, traveling and stop times may be intelligently adapted to present passenger load requirements, and deviations that have an impact on the schedule can thus be effectively and rapidly compensated for.
is still around a dozen, yet with an exponential tendency. To exacerbate the situation even more, there is an ongoing trend towards migration to the cities. According to the UN, in 2007 there were more people living in cities than in rural areas for the first time ever. And the proportion will increase to 60 percent of the worlds population by 2030, equalling about 5 billion people. Solving the traffic problem is a primary challenge for decision makers, and the main investment focus in cities for the next five to ten years, says Doug Miller, head of the Research Institute Globe Scan. In cooperation with MRC McLean Hazel Consulting, Globe Scan surveyed 522 decision makers in 25 megacities worldwide regarding their most important tasks planned for the next few years. Of the traffic experts interviewed, about 71 percent saw the further
development and enhancement of public transportation as an absolute priority. As a reaction to this trend, China is, in many cases, putting its bets on automated rail systems, though still employing drivers. Similar to driverless systems, station departure, acceleration and deceleration, as well as opening and closing of doors, are fully automated. Siemens control technology ensures that, for metro line 4 in Guangzhou and metro lines 8 and 10 in Beijing, all trains operate with maximum energy efficiency and in 90-second intervals. Nevertheless, even in cities with a well developed rail system, capacities are barely sufficient. In New York, about 1.5 billion people took the subway in 2006. And the downtown streets are still chronically congested. To enable the efficient transportation of even more passengers during rush hour times, Siemens equipped the line between the Canarsie District and Brooklyn with an automated system supporting the moving-block technology. This automation technology enables trains to communicate with each
Thanks to moving-block technology, trains in the New York Metro running between the Canarsie District and Brooklyn can operate at frequent intervals. Individual trains are in contact via radio link and can exchange exact position data. All trains are controlled from a single control room.
other and to identify individual positions of preceding or following trains. This way the distance between trains can be reduced to the optimum all while maintaining constant safety for all passengers. Since then, trains have been running, during the rush hour, in 90-second intervals instead of at intervals of 4 minutes as before. In the Finnish capital of Helsinki, Siemens is helping to replace the existing metro system by a fully automated system. As was the case in Nuremberg, modernization is also taking place without interrupting current operation. Ultimately, there is no alternative to automated metros, if a disastrous traffic collapse is to be avoided in our cities for a clean environment and more quality of life.
In both Sitras SES and MES versions, energy is stored in so-called double-layer capacitors. These are characterized by their ability to absorb electricity extremely fast and to re-emit it equally fast. In addition, they are highly durable and maintenance-free. Sitras HES (hybrid energy storage system for rail vehicles) is a system which uses nickel-metal hybrid batteries in addition to double-layer capacitors. These batteries can emit electricity over longer periods of time. Hence, trains can run distances of several hundred meters, entirely without external power. A hybrid system is recommended for routes where contact lines are undesired due to optical reasons or where there is insufficient space for the installation of overhead lines.
Spotlight
Solutions will be equipping two multifunctional supply ships for the Australian navy with stateof-the-art drive and energy technology. The order value amounts to about 52 million Euros. Both ships are supposed to improve the range of its amphibian deployment capabilities. For this purpose they will each be equipped with twelve helicopters. The major power booster is in the main propulsion system. It consists of two pod propulsion units per ship, each with an output of eleven MW, the associated converters and electronic control units, a medium-voltage switchgear unit and the generators for producing electricity. The turnable propulsion pods are located outside the ships hull, making the ship extremely maneuverable and are characterized by low noise and vibration levels. In addition, they increase the ships transport capacity. Both ships will be built in Ferrol in the north-west of Spain. Delivery is scheduled for 2014. After completion, maintenance, service and repairs over the entire service life of the ships will be supported by the global lifecycle management service of Siemens Marine Solutions.
ponent: the innovative converter controlling propulsion motors, generators and auxiliary circuit controls. This significantly increases the entire systems efficiency and reduces noise and vibration. Up to 1,000 hybrid buses in about 30 projects worldwide have been equipped with Siemens technology.
heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems and intelligently manages lighting, blinds and further electronic devices. The systems core is a control station within the respective property which controls different modules such as radiator control actuators, smoke detectors or window contacts. This way up to twelve different rooms can be wirelessly controlled and monitored. Synco living is connected to the Internet by a Web server, and enables remote control via personal computer or smartphone. An alarm may thus be set off from on the road. In case of a disturbance, the Web server additionally dispatches alarms per e-mail, text message or fax to up to four recipients. Synco living installation is extremely fast. The individual room units do not need to be hooked up to the power network, they work on batteries. The Web server can be connected to the personal computer via USB and runs on the buildings main Internet connection.
the freedom we had when designing the lamps, thanks to their small dimensions, states Mika Nummenpalo, director of product development, EasyLed. And they look good too, these street lights: Their futuristic look represents the innovative state-of-mind of Kittil, a community that continuously invests in trendsetting and sustainable technology.
information platform Bayerninfo.de this information is only a few clicks away in the state of Bavaria in southern Germany. The platform makes it much easier to avoid overloaded routes and rush hours as well as to choosing the optimum combination of means of transportation. The platform is operated by Verkehrsinformationsagentur Bayern GmbH (VIB) and offers road users current information for public and private transportation, free of charge. The company was specially established for this purpose by Siemens and PTV Planung Transport Verkehr AG on behalf of the Free State of Bavaria, Germany. Its service is manifold: traffic information, forecasts for the Autobahn, information for different types of public transportation, or the Bayernnetz fr Radler, a Bavarian network for cyclists. It is time to intelligently connect the different individual services so that each mode of transportation can fully show its advantage. The VIB in Bavaria is a successful example of how different traffic carriers can be networked and traffic information can be bundled following the approach Complete Mobility, says Hans-Jrg Grundmann, CEO, Siemens Mobility. Providing cross-border traffic information from Italy, Austria and Switzerland is planned as well starting your next vacation totally relaxed is guaranteed.
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Industry Journal
Creating sustainable value through technological leadership
Published by
Siemens AG Industry Sector Communications Werner-von-Siemens-Str. 50 91052 Erlangen Germany journal.industry@siemens.com
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Gerald Odoj Siemens AG Industry Sector Communications Erlangen
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Matias Ernst, Thomas Thiele (Siemens AG) Andreas Jung (das AMT) Hendrik Leyendecker (feedback communication)
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das AMT Gesellschaft fr individuelle Kommunikation mbH Andreas Jung (CEO) Friesenweg 2c 22763 Hamburg Germany www.das-amt.net
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Image credits
Fotolia (21, 59 top right), Getty Images (20), Visum (42, Stefan Bones), Stefan Mhlmann (54), Deutscher Zukunftspreis (27) All other images: Copyright Siemens AG
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Siemens AG 2009 All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication and use of its content are subject to prior consent. Technical details are subject to change. All information provided in this document refers to general technical possibilities and characteristics that do not always apply as described in every individual case.
Subject to change without prior notice Order No.: E20001-A10-S100-X-7600 Printed in Germany Siemens AG 2009
The information provided in this magazine contains merely general descriptions or characteristics of performance which in case of actual use do not always apply as described or which may change as a result of further development of the products. An obligation to provide the respective characteristics shall only exist if expressly agreed in the terms of contract. All product designations may be trademarks or product names of Siemens AG or supplier companies whose use by third parties for their own purposes could violate the rights of the owners.