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The buildings on the Scharnhausen factory premises with a floor
space of around 66,000 square metres and 1,200 employees need
to be supplied with energy In the new building alone – with its four
levels, it is as big as seven football pitches – there are 9,000 lights,
125 kilometres of cables, 11,500 sprinkler heads, 70 kilometres of
data cables, 1,300 smoke detectors and 28 kilometres of pipes for
heating and cooling The air in the whole building is replaced every
24 minutes That equates to one million cubic metres of fresh air
every hour
Buildings and production
In order to keep energy consumption to a minimum, the Festo
experts took innovative paths when planning the factory and build-
ing: all the departments involved were closely interlinked during
the planning phase They use a joint communication platform,
which can be used to make sure that the energy interaction
between building equipment and production system is taken into
account as soon as planning begins As processes are often mutu-
ally dependent, the energy has to be distributed sensibly By con-
tinually adjusting the generation process to the actual consump-
tion situation, the necessary energy can be provided very effi-
ciently
Scientifically balanced
Based on corresponding preliminary investigations, the specialists
developed different energy concepts Decisions were made accord-
ing to efficiency and depreciation calculations. Researchers at the
Technische Universität Braunschweig (Technical University of
Braunschweig) supported this process by carrying out life cycle
and profitability analyses for the individual concepts. They also
analysed the flows of energy with the aid of so-called Sankey dia-
grams, which show the overall energy balance of a factory building
Future scenarios were successfully integrated and the effects of
individual measures put into concrete figures.
Energy efficiency planned and put into practice
Energy utilisation already optimised through innovative
factory planning: buildings and production processes
are networked in terms of energy
Energy data
• Around 20 per cent of electricity from own
power generation
• Around 1,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide
saved each year
• Heat recovered from a third of the energy used
for generating compressed air
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Festo AG & Co KG