Festo’s Technology Centre
A milestone on the road to energy efficiency. Seasonal heating and cooling requirements are being reduced to the minimum that is practical from an economical and ecological perspective.
Only 30% of the required energy is provided by a natural gas-fired heating plant.
A solar and geothermal view of energy efficiency
A unique solar thermal system sits atop the shed roofs of the office and manufacturing areas at the Berkheim plant. This system was installed to minimise fossil fuel consumption for the operation of refrigerators and heating systems in buildings.
It is constructed from state-of-the-art vacuum tube collectors distributed over an area measuring 1,200 m2.
The result is an annual energy saving of approximately 750 MWh or 6% of the requirements for fossil fuel.
The energy-efficient solution deployed in Esslingen also uses earth cooling and heat generated by production processes. The natural gas-fired heating plant provides only 30% of the required energy.
A conceptual view of energy efficiency at the Rohrbach plant
Trigeneration
Festo in Rohrbach uses intelligent trigeneration in the form of a network of diverse energy generators and consumers.
In 2007, this system produced a total energy saving of over 40% compared with a similar conventional production building fitted out to current standards.
Savings of 5,217 MWh p.a. with a reduction in CO2 emissions of almost 4,000 t annually are achieved.