Energy efficiency
The electricity's long journey to the people
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The growing demand for energy combined with increasingly limited natural resources are challenging energy suppliers, industry as well as consumers to use energy as efficiently and sustainably as possible. Energy efficiency affects all forms of energy conversion: From efficient generation to the transportation and distribution of electrical energy and heat, to the efficient use of energy in industry, buildings, and mobility.
With today’s technology, the potential savings are enormous. Siemens is the only company in the world to support its customers with products and solutions along the entire energy conversion chain. The environmental portfolio includes high-efficiency gas and steam turbine power plants, renewable energies, low-loss electricity transmission, and smart grids, as well as intelligent building systems, energy-saving drives, and efficient transportation.
In China, Siemens is committed to being a part of sustainable development with focus on energy generation and transmission but also on industry and buildings.
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Efficient power generation involves converting as much of the primary energy used in a power plant as possible into electricity and usable heat. Increasing efficiency in fossil fuel power plants by just a few percentage points can save substantial resources and significantly decrease CO2 emissions. In case of renewable energy sources, the efficiency determines the costs of energy generation and thereby how competitive they are compared to conventional power plants.
Fossil fuel will remain the primary source of energy through the middle of the 21st century. There is great potential for improvements in efficiency when renovating coal-fired plants. In China, the average efficiency of coal-fired power plants is 36%. In conjunction with the independent innovations of Waigaoqiao No.3 Power Plant, the advanced technology from Siemens helps the power plant achieve the power supply net efficiency of more than 46%, which sets a "China Benchmark" for the power sector in the world.
Waigaoqiao III is the most efficient coal-fired power plant in the world.
In fossil fuel generation, the highest efficiency – over 60 percent - is today achieved by gas and steam turbine power plants. Due to very fast start-up times, they are ideal for compensating natural fluctuations of wind and solar energy generation. Even higher efficiencies – more than 90 percent – are possible with combined electricity and heat generation plants. One of these, the Huaneng Shanghai combined-cycle power plant, which is equipped with gas turbines from Siemens, was named Best Gas Power Plant in Asia in 2007.
The greatest challenge in the utilization of solar and wind energy is their fluctuating power feed. Their economic viability depends on the right choice of location and the most efficient possible use of their naturally low energy densities. China is the world’s fastest-growing wind market, and its installed wind energy capacity has doubled each year since 2005. By 2020 China hopes to have wind energy plants with a total combined capacity of 150,000 MW in operation. With the opening of its rotor blade plant in Shanghai in November 2010, Siemens as world market leader in offshore windparks is part of this development.
Renewable energy is often generated at locations far removed from the centers where it is consumed. A highlight project is the 1,400 kilometer “Electricity Autobahn” that uses high-voltage direct current transmission between the Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Guangdong. It features a transmission capacity of 5,000 megawatts and a transmission voltage of 800 kilovolts, the highest in the world for this type of project. It transports environmentally friendly electricity produced in several hydroelectric power plants, thereby eliminating 30 megatons of CO2 emissions that would otherwise be produced by conventional local power plants.
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Among the Siemens high voltage direct-current transmission projects, the Yunnan – Guangdong HVDC features a transmission capacity of 5,000 megawatts.
The existing electricity grid is not designed to accommodate the increasing amount of fluctuating current inputs from thousands of decentralized energy producers, such as wind parks and solar collectors. In order to be able to meet the requirements of the future, the world’s power grids will need to be modified and upgraded – they must become so-called smart grids.
A smart grid is a power transmission and distribution network based on communication between all the entities involved in the electricity market. It encompasses the energy conversion chain from generation to end consumer. Smart grids combine large as well as small distributed power producers and consumers into an overall structure. They also allow end users to participate in the energy market transparently and flexibly, as interactive “prosumers” who both produce and consume electricity.
Siemens is world market leader in energy automation and participates in and supports national and international research projects: On May 15, 2010, the company signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with the Wasion Group to jointly seek out and pursue smart grid project opportunities.
Transportation accounts for 25 to 30 percent of the world’s energy consumption, making it the largest consumer after industry and buildings. Apart from electromobility, the most important conventional opportunities of energy efficiency involve the intelligent management and networking of road, rail and air traffic. Furthermore highly efficient means of transportation must be implemented. Siemens solutions include the Velaro high-speed train, the world’s fastest and most eco-friendly series production trainset, as well as the Shanghai Metro and the Wuhan Urban Traffic Control System.
The Velaro high-speed train consumes only 0.33 liters of fuel per person per 100 kilometers.
Electric vehicles are the perfect complement to a smart grid, since they can offer mobile energy storage capacity. Electric car batteries can release energy back into the grid when there is little wind or demand is high. In Shanghai, for example, 10,000 to 22,500 electric cars with a capacity of 40 kilowatts each could store enough energy to serve as a buffer supply for peak demand times. Thus, electromobility solutions combined with renewable energy can unfurl their full potential for climate protection, as it is currently being tested in conditions of actual use.
Considerable energy is used in manufacturing of products before they reach consumers’ hands. In fact, industry is responsible for roughly 34 percent of worldwide greenhouse-gas emissions. This gives industry a special responsibility to continuously improve its efficiency in energy and resource utilization. On the business side, rising prices for energy and raw materials are making efficiency an even more urgent competitive requirement.
Siemens helps its industrial customers to improve their saving potentials with the intelligent combination of consistent, end-to-end processes, targeted services, and an integrated technology portfolio. In this way the entire automation and drive technology of the Henan Zhongfu aluminium hot rolling mill is supplied. The systems and components provide fast production run-up and safe, low maintenance operation.
With its open Totally Integrated Automation architecture, Siemens offers a unique suite of products and concepts for optimizing industrial plants. The SIMATIC industrial automatic system and SIMATIC PCS 7 process control system both play a central role. These two systems link and process information from sensors, improve the flow of information and make all types of industrial processes more energy-efficient.
Electric motors like those used for pumps, fans, and centrifuges account for two-thirds of the electricity used in industrial processes. The use of energy-efficient drives can reduce this amount by 15 percent. Drives that use electronic speed control can reduce a pump’s energy demand by up to 70 percent. Siemens offers its customers highly efficient motors for a wide range of uses that can reduce power loss by 40 percent compared to standard motors.
Systematic, targeted energy management of existing industrial plants allows the ongoing evaluation of energy flows, making it possible to optimize them. To uncover all potential energy savings in an industrial operation, Siemens has developed a three phases concept : identifying, evaluating and implementing. In the identifying phase, hardware and software identify the energy flows in the plant and uncover the energy-wasters. In the evaluating phase, the potential savings are calculated. Energy-saving programs like SinaSave and SIMATIC Powerrate help provide exact figures on the savings potential. In the implementing phase, specific steps are taken to realize the assessed savings.
Over 40 percent of the world’s energy consumption and 21 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions originate in buildings. The largest energy consumption is based on the technical systems and lighting, which add up to 40 to 60 percent of the total energy costs of a building. The potential for energy savings is enormous. A perfect example of an efficient building is the Chinese Pavilion, the symbol of Expo 2010 in Shanghai. The China Pavilion was built with energy-saving building technology from Siemens.
The Expo's green landmark: The China Pavilion was built with energy-saving building technology from Siemens.
To improve the energy efficiency of buildings, Total Building Solutions by Siemens intelligently networks building infrastructures, innovative electrical installation technology, and automation systems. With Totally Integrated Power, Siemens offers perfectly coordinated products and systems for distributing electricity in buildings. Additional communication and software modules link energy distribution with building automation. As early as 2009, Siemens delivered an integrated service package for energy savings and emissions reduction, including technical and financing solutions, to the Beijing-Chaoyang District. The achieved annual energy savings are estimated to be around 472,600 kWh, or 12 percent. In 2010, the project was extended to include public buildings and other relevant areas in the district.
When buildings are evaluated in terms of energy efficiency, all costs arising throughout their lifecycle must be considered. New buildings are often used differently from what was originally planned. Ten to fifteen percent of their energy can be conserved if individual systems are periodically adjusted for actual usage, with the help of recorded data from the building automation system. In addition, up to 40 percent of energy can be saved through the comprehensive energy modernization of older buildings, which Siemens provides with Energy Performance Contracting. The investment quickly amortizes through energy and materials savings.
Nineteen percent of global electricity consumption is used for lighting. Over one-third of this electricity can be saved by using energy-efficient lighting solutions – in fact, some solutions enable savings of up to 80 percent. Intelligent ballast, modern lighting technologies like LED, and multisensors also allow the economical conversion of existing lighting systems.
In the industrialized countries, more and more buildings have photovoltaic or small wind energy systems on their roofs. So called “Smart Buildings” transform from energy consumers to active participants in the energy market. A smart building is energy-efficient and generates, stores, and uses its own energy with its own management and control of these processes. With intelligent electronic electricity meters, improved demand estimates, and active building energy management, smart buildings become part of the smart grid.
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