“The award proves that innovations for climate protection and sustainability are the right approach,” said Barbara Kux, member of Siemens’ Managing Board and the company’s Chief Sustainability Officer. “Technological leadership is helping us continue our success in these difficult economic times. Our Environmental Portfolio grew 11 percent in 2009 and is, thus, a key stabilizing factor in our business. At some €23 billion, the Portfolio accounts for nearly a third of our total revenue, making Siemens the world’s largest supplier of green products and solutions.”

“Our new gas turbine shows that climate protection and fossil power generation are not mutually exclusive,” said Michael Süß, CEO of the Fossil Power Generation Division of Siemens’ Energy Sector. “This innovation will make it possible to continue supplying electrical energy at an affordable price in the future.” The gas turbine is the centerpiece of a combined-cycle power plant (CCCP) operated by E.ON in Irsching, near Ingolstadt, Germany. The turbine of superlatives is more than 13 meters long, five meters high and, at 444 tons, weighs more than the world’s largest passenger airplane. On its own, the gas turbine generates 370 megawatts of electricity. Once it is connected with a steam turbine, output will rise to roughly 570 megawatts, an amount sufficient to meet the electricity needs of some 3.4 million people – roughly the entire population of Berlin. The plant will achieve a world record efficiency level of more than 60 percent, which will benefit both the environment and the climate: annual CO2 emissions from each new plant of this type will be about 700,000 tons below the average emission level for power generation worldwide – a reduction equal to the total emissions of 350,000 cars driven 15,000 kilometers a year.

The speedMatic dishwasher proves that consumers, too, can contribute to climate protection. “In the last 20 years, we’ve cut our dishwashers’ energy consumption in half. The new zeolite technology provides an enormous increase in efficiency, using a further 20 percent less electricity than the most economical dishwashers on the market today,” said Kurt-Ludwig Gutberlet, head of BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte. “In 2008, we were designated the most sustainable company in Germany. This is just the next step.” The dishwasher’s unique technology utilizes zeolites – aluminum silicate minerals with a very large surface area and hollow pores – which can absorb water and become hot in the process. As a result, the drying cycle is considerably faster and more efficient. Even the puddles of residual water that accumulate in the indentations of cups and plastic containers that are otherwise always covered with water are dried up in seconds by the warm air released from the zeolite pellets. In the next washing cycle, the minerals are regenerated when moisture is removed from them as the dishwasher heats up. Plans now call for using the technology not only in top-of-the-range dishwashers but also in medium-priced models.

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“The world needs intelligent power grids in order to meet the growing demand for energy in a way that is eco-friendly and reliable. We estimate that the demand for electricity will double by 2030, due to trends like e-mobility, which is just emerging,” continued Dehen. According to studies, more than a billion tons of CO2 emissions could be abated with intelligent power networks by 2020. Smart Grids are essential for integrating renewable power sources into power networks and for ensuring stable power supplies from solar and wind energy.

Overall, the Smart Grid market has three primary components: Smart Metering (intelligent billing), Grid Intelligence (the grid infrastructure and its controls), and Utility IT (intelligent data management). Siemens is active in all three areas and is already global market leader for grid intelligence. Siemens will strengthen its Smart Grid portfolio in the field of power data management in the coming fiscal year when it plans to take over a 60-percent stake in Energy4U on October 1, 2009. This move will expand the company’s portfolio for power utilities in the area of consumption data acquisition and billing.

Smart Grids have enormous growth potential worldwide. They are, for example, a prerequisite for reaching the EU’s 20-20-20 climate goals aimed at reducing CO2 emissions by 20 percent and increasing the share of renewable energies in the European grid by 20 percent by 2020. In addition, Smart Grids are included in many of the economic stimulus programs throughout the world. The U.S. government alone intends to invest around €3 billion here in the coming years. Siemens expects to receive orders worth around €15 billion from these programs by 2012. Forty percent of these orders, or a volume of roughly €6 billion, is expected to be for green technologies from the Siemens Environmental Portfolio.

Energy-efficient, resource-conserving Smart Grids are part of the Siemens Environmental Portfolio, which generated revenue of nearly €19 billion in fiscal 2008. This was around one-quarter of the company’s total revenue, making Siemens the world’s biggest infrastructure provider of environmental technologies.

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 Large cruise ships, for example, have to maneuver in a complex manner in order to dock at the many ports they visit, but at other times they generally travel slowly, occasionally speeding up in between. Electric motors can deliver such varying outputs more efficiently and rapidly than diesel engines, which are most economical at constant engine speeds. Passengers benefit as well, because the superconductor motor makes less noise and generates fewer vibrations.

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The new development is the result of many years of cooperation between researchers at Corporate Technology and propulsion and shipbuilding experts from other Siemens areas, as well as additional partners from industry and research institutes. Superconducting materials are used for the rotor windings, which is why they are housed in a closed system cooled down to minus 246 degrees Celsius. These windings can bear 100 times more current density than copper windings, which saves weight and space. For example , a generator equipped with superconducting windings already successfully tested by Siemens is only half as heavy and one-fourth as large as a conventional generator. The propulsion unit also produces 30 times more torque (over 300 kilonewtonmeters) than a conventional generator. A comparable electric motor without superconducting coils has a significant lower torque. Like the generator, the motor will be put through its paces at the Siemens System Test Center in Nuremberg in about two years’ time, after which it will be readied for market launch

Siemens VAI Metals Technologies

Start-up of the new waste-gas recirculation systems is scheduled for the first quarter of 2010.

At Posco’s Pohang Works five sinter plants are in operation, two of which will be retrofitted with a selective waste-gas recirculation system. Sinter Plant No. 3, with a sintering surface area of slightly more than 500 m2, is capable of producing six million tons of sinter per year. A total of 300,000 Nm3/h of offgas (or 15–20% of the total offgas quantity) will be recycled to the sinter strand. Sinter Plant No. 4, with a sintering surface area of 436 m2, produces roughly five million tons of sinter per year. The surface area of this strand will be extended to nearly 520 m2 through an elongation of the sinter-strand length to enable an annual sinter output of approximately 6.7 million tons. Here too, approximately 300,000 Nm3/h of offgas (or 15–20% of the total offgas quantity) will be recirculated to the sinter strand. Installation of the selective waste-gas recirculation system will enable a higher sinter capacity without increasing in the total offgas quantity. The offgas from the sintering process is subsequently treated in an ESP (electrostatic precipitator), DE-SOx plant, DE-NOx plant and bag-filter station to meet municipal environmental regulations.

Contrary to other waste-gas recirculation systems where a portion of the total sinter offgas is extracted for recycling to the sinter strand, only the offgas from selected wind boxes is recycled to the sinter strand with the Siemens VAI solution. This provides a high degree of operational flexibility in that operators can freely select wind boxes for recirculation purposes with, for example, the highest concentrations of CO gas or the highest emission levels. When hot/CO-rich offgas from the sinter strand is selected, the coke consumption required for the ignition of the sinter raw mix can be reduced by up to 10 percent with a corresponding decrease in CO2 emissions. With the recycling of offgas from wind boxes with especially high concentrations of emissions, an increased quantity of dusts and pollutants can be entrapped or chemically bound or neutralized in the sinter bed. This reduces the overall specific load of pollutants contained in the offgas which must be treated prior to being released to the environment. Additionally, the specific quantity of sinter waste-gas is reduced, which not only lowers the electrical energy consumption of the ID (induced draft) fans, but which also considerably lowers the CAPEX (capital expenditures) and OPEX (operational expenditures) for the downstream gas-treatment facilities.

With a crude-steel output of nearly 35 million tons in 2008, Posco (Pohang Iron and Steel Company Ltd.) is the fourth largest steel manufacturer in the world. At its production sites in Korea and elsewhere in Asia, the company produces a wide range of carbon, stainless and electrical-steel grades which are sold as coils, sheets, plates and wire rod that are used for a multitude of industrial applications.

Further information about solutions for steel works, rolling mills and processing lines is available at http://www.siemens.com/metals