For many holiday-makers, a cruise on board a luxury liner is right up at the top of their wish list. No wonder that the leisure cruising market has been booming for many years. In the past year alone, more than 20 million cruise passengers embarked in locations around the world – and the trend is upwards. This year saw the launch of the Aida shipping company's ninth ship fitted out with automation technology from Siemens.
The Finnish Railways, VR Group, ordered 80 electric Vectron locomotives from Siemens. The new locomotives are designed to operate reliably even under the extreme climatic conditions in Scandinavia during their long service life. Siemens was able to provide clear evidence of their capability during comprehensive test and authorization trips in Sweden and Norway. For Siemens this marks the largest single contract so far for its latest generation of Vectron locomotives and the first for this type in the broad gauge version.
Siemens has been awarded a contract to provide 152 new S70 light rail vehicles (LRVs) for Sound Transit, the regional transit system serving the Seattle and Central Puget Sound area in the US state of Washington. The S70s light rail vehicles will be built at the Siemens rail manufacturing hub in Sacramento, California. The fleet is expected to begin testing in 2019.
Building on its commitment to innovative power plant solutions, Siemens has been awarded a contract from Colbún S.A. to upgrade the Central Termoeléctrica Nehuenco-I plant with Siemens' Power Plant Automation T3000 Cue (SPPA-T3000) system. The 368-megawatt (MW) combined cycle power plant is located in Quillota, Valparaíso Region, in Chile and provides electricity to approximately 350,000 homes in the region.
For the first time in many decades, a private company began planning and developing a fast intercity connection in the United States in 2012. The new Florida East Coast Railway will operate up to 16 pairs of trains from Miami Central Station via Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach.
In 2014, the Departments of Transportation of California, Illinois and Maryland ordered an initial lot of 34 Charger locomotives from Siemens, with an option for a total of 222 locomotives. The contract back then was valued at approximately €165 million ($225 million). Due to orders from other states as well as by the private rail operator All Aboard Florida, the total number of Chargers ordered amounts to 81 in 2017. The locomotives are deployed in corridors of the US states for regional and mainline trains travelling for Caltrains (California) as Amtrak Pacific Surfliner, in Washington as Amtrak Cascades and in Maryland with the regional network MARC. Under the "Brightline" brand, ten Chargers are being deployed in high-speed rail services between Miami and West Palm Beach; Orlando is due to follow at a later date.
Siemens has won a significant order from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) in India to overhaul 18 units of RT48S & RT56 power turbines of Siemens fleet of aeroderivative gas turbines driven by Industrial AVON & Industrial RB211 gas generators along with installation and commissioning services. The turbines are operating at Mumbai High Asset and Neelam & Heera Asset of ONGC in Mumbai.
The foundation stone of the future converter station was laid on the morning of February 23rd in Folkestone by Jesse Norman, Minister for Industry and Energy signalling the start of the construction work for high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) project ElecLink. Siemens has been awarded an order to supply a link between the French and British power grids by customer ElecLink Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Groupe Eurotunnel SE. The ElecLink high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) link will enhance power supply reliability in both countries and promote the integration of renewable energy sources into the power grid. ElecLink, when complete, will supply enough electricity to power more than 1.65 million typical households per year. The HVDC link between France and Great Britain has been designated as one of the European Commission's projects of common interest to help create an integrated European Union energy market.
The wind service operation vessel (SOV) for the Dutch Gemini project has been christened "Windea la cour" today in Hamburg. The vessel is to set sail to start operations at the Gemini offshore wind power plant this summer. This is the third Siemens-chartered SOV which is supporting Siemens and its offshore service operations. Since June 2015, 'Esvagt Faraday' is supporting service operations at the Butendiek offshore wind power plant in North Sea and 'Esvagt Froude' is utilized for service at the EnBW Baltic II wind farm in the Baltic Sea. A fourth SOV will be utilized for service operations by Siemens at the Sandbank and Dan Tysk wind projects. SOVs are part of innovative approaches in the sector of service for offshore wind power of Siemens anc can make a vital contribution in the future to further reducing the costs for electricity generated by offshore wind farms.
The "Fortuna" combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant at the Lausward location in the port of Düsseldorf was successfully handed over to the customer and operator, the Stadtwerke Düsseldorf public utility company, on January 22, 2016. The power plant has broken three world records: in the acceptance test a maximum electrical net output of 603.8 megawatts (MW) was achieved and the net energy conversion efficiency was around 61.5 percent. In addition, "Fortuna" can also deliver up to around 300 MW for the district heating system of the city of Düsseldorf – a further international peak value for a power plant equipped with only one gas and steam turbine. This increases the overall efficiency of natural gas as a fuel to 85 percent. The heart of the "Fortuna" CCGT power plant is the extremely powerful SGT5-8000H gas turbine from Siemens. Highly efficient and flexible CCGT power plants ideally complement renewable energy sources such as the wind and the sun, which are subject to fluctuations in their power outputs.