Green business

As Europe's largest engineering company, Siemens has reorganized its portfolio into three business groups: industry, energy and healthcare.

In addition to energy, the company's industry divisions also have accelerated their pace in doing green business in China.

For instance, Siemens' home appliances division launched its 3D air-drying washer-dryer in the Chinese market last month.

Compared with traditional washer-dryers, the new product can save 30 liters to 90 liters of water during the drying processes.

"Water conservation has become an important issue for China. With this product, we will help our customers better conserve the natural resource," said Roland Gerke, president and CEO of BSH Home Appliances (China) Co Ltd, a 50-50 venture between Siemens and Bosch.

BSH since 1990 has succeeded in cutting the average energy consumption of its products by more than 40 percent, Gerke said.

Gerke said the company is also developing a refrigerator that uses solar power. The product, a hybrid, can use solar power and also electricity when there is no sun.

BSH began research and development work for the product last year. It will be launched first in China, Gerke said.

Siemens' metals technologies division is also expanding its presence in the Chinese market with green solutions.

It has provided a new technology, called Corex C-3000, to Baosteel, China's leading steel company. The technology can eliminate the need for coking plants in the production process, significantly reducing raw material costs and environmental emissions.

It has also signed another agreement with Ma'anshan Iron & Steel Co Ltd (Masteel) in Anhui province to build a MEROS (Maximized Emission Reduction Of Sintering) plant to reduce emissions. Sintering is a method for making objects from powder by heating the material until its particles adhere to each other.

Today, energy and raw materials account for 70 percent of the total costs incurred by steel plants. Reducing operating costs and making more efficient use of input materials are attracting an increasing amount of interest, said Richard Pfeiffer, CEO of Siemens VAI metals technologies.

Siemens China CEO Hausmann said more than 50 percent of the future growth of Siemens China would be related to green technology.

Siemens' green portfolio of business in China will generate orders valued at US$6 billion for Siemens next year -- 40 percent of the company's total orders in China for 2010, the company said.

(China Daily October 26, 2009)