Energy costs reduced by half a million euros

The program will repay its investment costs of €1.9 million in about four and a half years. At the same time, the location now emits one fourth less carbon dioxide – a reduction of more than 2,700 tonnes.

This is the amount of CO2 that would be produced by approximately 18 million kilometers of automobile driving. Siemens Healthcare employs 1,100 people in Kemnath. The ultramodern manufacturing site there produces components for magnetic resonance imaging, CT scanning, and radiography, among other applications.

Since 2006 Siemens has been identifying energy-saving potential at its own facilities and adopting efficiency measures to tap into that potential. More than 100 of the company's 300 plants have already undergone the Siemens Energy Health Check. As a result, electricity consumption at the production facilities declined by 11 percent on average between 2006 and 2010. At the same time, their efficiency with regard to primary energy and district heating increased by almost one fourth.

The savings in Kemnath were due to four steps. Instead of the old gas boilers, biomass boilers that use wood chips as fuel are now supplying the necessary heat. An extra gas boiler is used to manage peak loads. Electricity is supplied by a natural gas cogeneration unit that simultaneously produces heat. The new heating technology was responsible for over 60 percent of the cost savings. In addition, fans and pumps for the air conditioning systems were made adjustable with the help of frequency converters.

Now carbon dioxide sensors measure the air quality, and the ventilation system is adjusted as needed. Savings also result from the use of the latest generation of energy-saving fluorescent lamps, which are automatically dimmed on the basis of input from daylight sensors and motion detectors. Finally, all the buildings are now connected to a completely renovated, efficient central cooling system.

Siemens is one of the world's leading suppliers of green technologies, and the company brings this expertise to bear at its own business locations too. Environmentally friendly and energy-efficient products and solutions are part of the Siemens Environmental Portfolio, with which the company generated about €30 billion in sales in business year 2011.