On March 2nd, 2017, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser and further high-ranking representatives witnessed the symbolic inauguration of the first phase of Siemens' megaproject in Egypt. The event marked an important milestone towards the completion of the project.
In collaboration with the Egyptian Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy, Siemens and its consortium partners, Orascom Construction and Elsewedy Electric, announced on July 24, 2018 the completion of the Egypt Megaproject in record time. The parties celebrated the combined cycle commissioning and the start of operations at the Beni Suef, Burullus and New Capital power plants. The stations will add a total of 14.4 gigawatts (GW) of power generation capacity to Egypt's national grid, enough power to supply up to 40 million people with reliable electricity. With this milestone, Egypt and Siemens have set a new world record for execution of modern, fast-track power projects, delivering 14.4 GW of power in only 27.5 months. A single combined cycle power plant block with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts typically takes approximately 30 months for construction. For the Egypt Megaproject Siemens in parallel built twelve of these blocks in record time and connected them to the grid.
Following the delivery of several Siemens SGT5-8000H gas turbines, the first steam turbine for the Egypt Megaproject began its journey in December 2016 from the Siemens factory in Muelheim to the power plant Beni Suef in Egypt. The main components of the 670-ton cargo were lifted with a heavy-duty crane from the production hall onto a transport vessel standing by at the plant's inland harbor facilities. The vessel transported the SST-5000 steam turbine from Muelheim to the deep-water port of Antwerp where it was loaded onto a heavy cargo ship and transported to Egypt.
After the steam turbines installation, the waste heat from the gas turbines will be used to produce steam that will then drive the steam turbine, thus increasing the overall power output and efficiency of the power plant. In total, Siemens will deliver twelve SST-5000 steam turbines for the Egyptian power plants Beni Suef, Burullus and New Capital. All of these steam turbines will be manufactured at the Siemens factory in Muelheim.
- Take-over of technologically leading process control software solutions strengthens the Siemens machine tool control software portfolio
- Software solutions for adaptive spindle feed control, enhanced tool life cycles and spindle vibration analysis
- Integration of OMAT Ltd.'s products into the Siemens software portfolio for the Digital Enterprise enables easier handling and a significant advancement of existing OMAT products
Siemens Digital Factory plans to take over products of OMAT Ltd., a supplier of software solutions for adaptive spindle feed control, improvement of tool life cycles and vibration analysis of spindles for the use with CNC controls. The software solutions offered by OMAT focus on optimizing the spindle feed during machine operation. These solutions from OMAT Ltd., headquartered in Jerusalem, will provide a significant addition to the Siemens CNC software portfolio for Sinumerik and further strengthen Siemens' position as a leading supplier of CNC controls mainly in the field of digitalization.
- Siemens' lightning information service detected about 443,000 lightning strikes in Germany in 2017 – 11,000 more than in 2016
- Garmisch-Partenkirchen was the German district struck most often by lightning, lowest rates were in the city of Pirmasens
- Germany's "capital of lightning" was Mainz, followed by Wiesbaden and Berlin
- At the European level, Slovenia leads the ranking
Garmisch-Partenkirchen District in Upper Bavaria was the German region with the most lightning activity in 2017. Siemens' lightning information service BLIDS (which stands for Blitz-Informationsdienst von Siemens) registered 3.51 lightning strikes per square kilometer in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 2017. The districts of Main-Taunus and Giessen in the state of Hesse were on second and third place with 3.47 and 3.46 ground flashes per square kilometer, respectively. Germany's lowest concentration of lightning strikes was in the cities of Pirmasens (0.16), Oldenburg and Bonn (both at 0.18). With lightning hitting 2.4 times per square kilometer, Mainz led the country's list of state capitals. Overall, at 443,000 strikes, BLIDS again registered a comparatively low level of atmospheric discharges in Germany – although 2016's record low level, with about 432,000 strikes detected, was exceeded in 2017 by 11,000 (2,5 percent). For the first time, BLIDS is also making data available for Central Europe.
Siemens has won the contract to supply systems to its customer Trung Nam Group in Vietnam and put the country's largest solar farm into operation. The farm is the first solar project for Siemens in South-East Asia, and has a module capacity of 258 megawatts peak (MWp). The deliverables include inverters, power- and distribution transformers, gas-insulated medium-voltage switchgear, circuit-breakers, and a monitoring and control system. All transformers are to be delivered as Sensformer with digital interface. The overall project constitutes an "Electrical Balance of Plant" (eBoP) solution, and involves a number of Siemens units, headed by Medium Voltage and Systems. The solution includes all the electrical engineering components needed to equip a photovoltaic plant. "The customer received our competent support in the bidding phase and will get a very competitive solution," says Stephan May, CEO of the Medium Voltage and Systems Business Unit. "We are proud to be able to offer the best solution that will play a vital role in supporting the energy transformation in Vietnam."
Siemens has introduced a new SGT-800 performance enhancement that is applicable to all existing SGT-800 units with 43-47.5-MW ratings. The new upgrade is designed to provide owners and operators with significant fuel savings and CO2 emissions reduction for improved sustainable energy production.
- Siemens cloud platform for remote heating, ventilation and air conditioning control further extended
- Collect billing data and reduce energy consumption remotely
- Cost-efficient solution for operation, management and energy monitoring for small and midsize buildings
The Siemens Division Building Technologies adds new functionalities to the Synco IC cloud platform for remote HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) control. From July 2018 onwards, Synco IC includes remote meter reading for energy billing, remote monitoring of energy key performance indicators (KPIs) and remote intervention to reduce energy consumption. Synco IC, introduced to the market in 2015, is a cloud-based system for the cost-efficient operation and management of HVAC plants in small and medium size buildings.
- Siemens report "Cities in the Driving Seat" encourages cities to anticipate and tackle upcoming changes to their infrastructures early
- Report urges urban areas to use connected and autonomous vehicles to refocus urban environments on citizens rather than cars
- Connecting autonomous vehicles to intelligent transport infrastructures can maximize their benefit
- Greatest benefit from autonomous vehicles will emerge from capacity to provide "first and last mile" trips and help city government provide new transport services
The advent of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) has the potential to cause major and disruptive changes to cities worldwide, a report launched by Siemens indicates. The report "Cities in the Driving Seat" stresses the need for cities to plan early and tackle the issue in a wider context of mobility transformations. Launched today at the World Cities Summit in Singapore the study explores the interdependencies between urban development, public transportation policies, power supply, pollution and the increasing share of CAV in city traffic. Lack of mid-term planning and delayed investments in infrastructure could create negative social, economic and environmental effects, the authors from Siemens' Global Center of Competence Cities argue.
- City Air Management captures pollution data in real time and forecasts emissions up to five days in advance
- Solution simulates effectiveness of measures for improving air quality
- Siemens and Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City plan to jointly deploy and enhance this software solution as world's first implementation
A new software solution is helping cities remedy the growing problem of air pollution and the associated lack of compliance with emission-control thresholds. Siemens presented City Air Management (CyAM) at the World Cities Summit in Singapore. CyAM is a cloud-based software suite with a dashboard that displays real-time information on the air quality detected by sensors across a city and predicts values for the upcoming three to five days. These air-quality forecasts are prepared with the aid of algorithms that tap into an artificial neural network and draw on historical and current data on air quality as well as weather and traffic patterns. Mayors and other decision-makers can then use this data and a combination of potential solution measures to derive concrete recommendations for action and define measures that help reduce concentrations of nitrogen oxides and atmospheric particulate matter.
- Award for the Avenio M
- Tram convinces in the category "Product Design"
- Second Red Dot Award for the Avenio family
The Siemens Avenio M tram, designed for Ulm, Germany, has won the prestigious Red Dot Award. SWU Verkehr GmbH had ordered twelve articulated Avenio M trams from Siemens in May 2015. The trams are optimized for operating on the Ulm routes with their steep grades and will serve on Line 1 and the new Line 2.
- MoU signed under the witness of German chancellor and Chinese premier
- Siemens MindSphere to be deployed and operated on Alibaba Cloud's infrastructure for China Mainland market
Siemens and Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today to partner to foster the industrial Internet of Things (IoT) in China. The two companies will leverage each other's technology and industry resources to build a unique IoT solution to support Industrie 4.0, China's manufacturing upgrade and transformation and other industrial Internet initiatives. Joe Kaeser, President and CEO of Siemens AG and Simon Hu, Senior Vice President of Alibaba Group and President of Alibaba Cloud signed the MoU in Berlin under the witness of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during his official visit to Germany.