As worldwide demand for energy soars, increasing amounts of electricity must be generated – and the processes used must be as ecofriendly, economical and efficient as possible. We’re meeting this challenge with gas turbines that are setting new industry benchmarks for efficiency and performance. The German utility E.ON is currently testing the world’s most powerful and environmentally compatible gas turbine at its power plant in the Bavarian town of Irsching. The turbine generates a world-record 340 megawatts, enough electricity to power a city the size of Barcelona. When the stand-alone test phase is completed, the unit will be expanded to become a combined cycle power plant that uses exhaust gases to generate additional electricity. In combined cycle operation, the plant will attain an efficiency of over 60 percent. Compared with today’s top ratings of more than 58 percent, this may seem like a small improvement. But it will cut the facility’s CO₂ emissions by 40,000 tons a year and, thus, make a substantial contribution to climate protection. Making it all happen are products and systems from Siemens – innovations like computer-optimized turbine blade design and innovative materials that enable blades to withstand extremely high temperatures.

Energy sources are not always located where they’re needed. The Australian state of Victoria, for example, relies on ecofriendly hydropower generated 295 kilometers away on Tasmania. Thanks to our outstanding technological expertise, the island is now linked to Victoria via Basslink, one of the world’s longest undersea power cable connections. The link uses a high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) transmission system developed by Siemens. As the project’s consortium leader, we’re responsible for the entire HVDC system and all its key components. Huge amounts of power can now be efficiently transported not only over long distances but also in two directions: during dry periods, when Tasmania’s reservoirs are too low to generate power, Basslink transports electricity from the Australian mainland to the island.

With world energy consumption rising, fossil fuels becoming scarcer and more expensive and climate change making a growing impact worldwide, the share of renewables in the energy mix will have to be increased. Since wind power is a key source of renewable energy, we’re ideally positioned for success.

Solar energy is emission-free, and over the long term it has the potential for meeting the entire energy demand of humankind with ecofriendly power. Solar thermal power plants generate electricity using solar energy. In principle, they function in exactly the same way as conventional steam power plants but have one important difference. The steam required to drive the turbine is not generated by the combustion of fossil fuels but with the aid of solar energy: in solar thermal power plants, mirrors focus the incident solar radiation and thus heat a heat transfer agent. Steam is then raised in heat exchangers to drive a turbine-generator. We’re the market leader in steam turbines for solar thermal power plants – one of the fastest-growing power plant markets. In the last five years, we’ve secured orders for more than 45 of these steam turbines specially adapted for solar thermal projects – for example, the parabolic-trough power plant Nevada Solar One (64 megawatts) in the U.S. and Andasol 1 and 2 (each rated at 50 megawatts) in Spain. After startup, Andasol 1 will generate over 157 gigawatt-hours of solar power annually – enough electricity to meet the annual energy demand of around 50,000 households.