Deutsche Bahn
(DB) and Siemens Mobility are driving forward the climate-friendly transition
in transport and are testing the use of hydrogen for rail for the first time.
The aim is to test a completely new overall system consisting of a newly
developed train and a newly designed filling station.
Smartphone users as well as industrial companies are looking forward to the advent of the new 5G wireless mobile standard, thanks to which companies will be able to connect their machines and thus make their production plants and intralogistics operations more efficient, more autonomous, and more flexible than ever before.
Industrie 4.0, the smart factory, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) – these are the future of industrial manufacturing. Designing production plants and intralogistics to be more flexible, autonomous, and efficient requires the right communication framework and comprehensive connectivity. The new 5G communication standard opens up important new prospects. It will initially have a data speed of between one and 5 gigabits per second, subsequently increasing to 20 gigabits per second – a quantum leap that will make it between 10 and 20 times faster than the system’s predecessor, LTE.
Estonian Railways (Eesti Raudtee) and Siemens Mobility – GRK Rail
Consortium signs a large-scale contract to modernize the railways in Estonia.
Estonian Railways has initiated a very ambitious investment plan which
will take the service quality, traffic management and safety of its rail infrastructure
to a new level by 2030. Between 2020 and 2024 it plans to upgrade the safety
systems on six lines of the rail network and upgrade approximately 50 stations
across the country. To deliver this modernization of the rail safety systems
(CCS), the contract is worth over € 115 million.
The agreement on modernizing the safety systems paves the way for
migrating the entire rail network to the European signalling standard, the
European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS / ETCS) in the future. The
agreement relates to the first and second phases of the modernization plan.
Migrating to ERTMS/ETCS is subject to the third phase.
Siemens Mobility is presenting the new Mireo Smart train. It enables operators to quickly expand their capacity and ensures profitable operation thanks to its attractive price, low maintenance costs and very high degree of reliability.
Siemens Mobility's Vectron locomotives are used for both freight and passenger service. During the development of the locomotive, the focus was on providing a future-proof design, investment security, environmental compatibility, fungibility, retrofitting capability and convertibility. The Vectron can be delivered as a purely electrical version for operating with alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC) power systems as well as a multisystem (MS) variant in the power classes 5.2 MW, 5.6 MW and 6.4 MW. Along with the desired national train control system, the locomotives can also be equipped with the latest European Train Control System (ETCS). The locomotives are built in the Siemens Mobility plant in Munich-Allach, Germany. The first Vectron was delivered in 2012. Siemens Mobility has sold over 1,000 Vectrons to date to a total of 49 customers. The Vectron fleet has accumulated more than 300 million kilometers of service so far. The locomotives are currently certified for operation in 19 countries. For freight transport in Germany, Siemens Mobility also offers the Smartron standard locomotive and the Vectron Dual Mode, a combination of diesel and electric locomotive.
Connected and self-driving vehicles are on the horizon. Autonomous taxis and minibuses could cover the last mile between homes and public mass transit and long-distance transport hubs, helping make private cars superfluous in cities and relieving congestion. In rail transport as well, fully automated systems and connectivity can help satisfy the rapidly growing demand for mobility. Making vehicles and infrastructure more intelligent can ensure better availability and make mobility safer. All this adds up to vastly improved urban environments.
Siemens is working with municipalities, public transit authorities and research institutes to develop these transport concepts.
Labeled as the project of the century for the German metropolitan region, the Rhine-Ruhr express (RRX) will help alleviate the continuously worsening transportation issues along the Rhine and Ruhr from 2018. The municipalities involved in the new RRX rail transport concept commissioned Siemens to supply 82 electric multiple units, type Desiro HC, and to provide maintenance services for a period of 32 years. With a total volume of more than 1.7 billion euros, this is the largest regional rail service order in Germany so far for Siemens.
The region is one of the largest conurbations in Europe, with a population of approximately ten million and numerous transit routes. On the main section between Cologne and Dortmund in particular, mobility has been heavily restricted for years now by overstretched public transport networks and train connections. Through a targeted extension of the railway network and the shift of traffic from road to rail this enables, the RRX is expected to replace roughly 31,000 individual car trips every working day. The first RRX trains will begin operating punctually with the change of the rail system's timetable on December 9, 2018. Commercial operation will begin on Line RE 11 that connects Düsseldorf, Essen, Dortmund, Hamm, Paderborn and Kassel. During rush hours the eventual target is one train every 15 minutes.
The photo artist Herlinde Koelbl presents her international “Fascination of Science” project for the first time. She portrays 60 renowned Nobel Prize winners and scientists. Siemens Arts Program supports the project. The opening ceremony will take place at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Berlin on October 2, in the presence of the artist and the Managing Board of Siemens AG.
To increase the reliability of AC grids, improve power quality, and boost transmission efficiency, Siemens Energy successfully implements many and varied projects in transmission systems around the world using state-of-the-art Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS).STATCOM systems, for example, stabilize fluctuations by absorbing or feeding in voltage-supporting reactive power, depending on the requirements. Approximately two-thirds of the globally installed STATCOM systems with modular multilevel converter technology are from Siemens Energy. Based on the technology of conventional static var compensators, Siemens Energy has developed additional innovative solutions, such as the SVC PLUS FS frequency stabilizer and the mobile STATCOM, which stabilize the grid and close gaps in energy systems around the world.
In September 2020 Siemens Energy launched its newest grid stabilization solution: the Unified Power Flow Controller UPFC PLUS. It will help system operators stabilize the grid by dynamically controlling the load flow in alternating-current grids. Easy to integrate into existing infrastructure, the UPFC PLUS improves the efficiency of today’s power grid while providing the grid stability and resilience required in the ever-changing energy landscape.