SIEMENS

Russia occupies a special place among the BRIC countries — the dynamic markets of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Whereas the economies of China, India, and Brazil are growing fast, Russia is only slowly coming back from the economic crisis, with progress being inhibited mainly by significantly reduced raw materials prices. “An influx of foreign investment is crucial for the modernization of the Russian economy,” says Prof. Rolf Langhammer from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW). “Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the fall of 2011 sent a signal that foreign investors can count on legal guarantees and the protection of their intellectual property rights in the country.”

In the energy sector, Russia is looking to modernize and expand its existing outdated power plants. A total of 140 new power plant blocks with a combined capacity of 26 gigawatts (GW) are to be built between now and 2017. Many of these will be efficient combined-cycle power plants, which are becoming more and more important for the entire Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). “Facilities equipped with gas turbines currently account for only around 30 GW of the total installed capacity of 370 GW in CIS member states,” says Dr. Roland Fischer, CEO of the Fossil Power Generation Division in Siemens’ Energy Sector. “However, we estimate that their share of output will rise to 100 GW by 2020.”

Siemens has been active in Russia for 160 years, and the company is now planning to invest €1 billion in the country and create 4,000 new skilled jobs over the next three years. A total of €700 million will be invested in Russia’s energy sector alone, €400 million of which will be earmarked for the expansion of service operations and new facilities that manufacture efficient gas turbines. “We’re investing around €275 million in a new gas turbine manufacturing facility in St. Petersburg, where we will start building state-of-the-art products in 2014,” says Dr. Michael Süß, member of the Siemens Managing Board and CEO of Siemens’ Energy Sector.

The new facility will handle not only production, service, and sales but also research and development. Demand for high-voltage components is also increasing in line with Russia’s expansion and modernization of its power grid. Siemens has invested roughly €5 million in a plant for manufacturing high-voltage power switches and circuit-breaker switches for the 110 and 220 kilovoltage levels in Voronezh, which is located around 500 kilometers south of Moscow. The facility will have an annual production capacity of 500 switches.

Fast Falcon. Siemens regards Russia as a strategic growth market for rail systems technology. The company has delivered several high-speed trains for the Moscow-St. Petersburg line. These “Sapsan” (falcon) trains have been adapted to handle the special climatic conditions of this region. For example, they need to remain fully operational at temperatures as low as -40 degrees Celsius (°C); safety-related systems have to withstand a temperature of -50 °C. If an onboard network fails, the train can be supplied with heat directly from overhead power lines.

Siemens engineers have also developed a special procedure for checking the durability of train wheels and analyzing the resulting data in order to find the appropriate wheel profile; and they have altered the trains’ undercarriages to avoid the aggregation of ice and snow. Russian Railways has announced plans to invest almost €300 billion in the rail system network between now and 2030. In this period, it plans to commission 23,000 new locomotives and 24,000 new regional trains. In 2011 Siemens and Russian rail technology company Sinara established a Train Technologies joint venture for local production of regional trains in Yekaterinburg. The new company has already received orders worth more than €3 billion for freight locomotives and regional trains, such as the Desiro RUS. Several hundred million euros are being invested in the expansion of local production capacity.

Taking the Buzz out of Transformers. But Siemens plans to do more in Russia that just manufacturing; it also plans to extend its research activities there. In June 2010 Siemens signed an agreement with the Engineering Center of Russian steel manufacturer Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK). The objective is to work together on research in the areas of metal production optimization, materials quality, and production automation. Novolipetsk Steel is one of the few companies in the world that can produce electrical steel for transformers, and it is looking to become a qualified supplier of transformer steel for Siemens. This will require various kinds of know-how — for example, expertise in manufacturing the type of transformer alloy that prevents the buzzing noise common at substations. The microstructures of associated materials will also be fine tuned, as these can be influenced by temperature, the degree of deformation involved, and chemical compositions.

“In addition to steel production equipment, NLMK also needs automation systems from Siemens for the control of production processes,” says Denis Saraev, who is responsible for the High-performance Metals and Alloys technology field at Siemens. “On the other hand, we’re also NLMK’s potential customer for steel that can be used for manufacturing transformers and electric motors.” Saraev also manages this special partnership with NLMK.

Accelerated Research. Siemens is also the first German company to enter into a strategic partnership with the initiators of the future innovation city of Skolkovo. Siemens plans to invest €40 million in an R&D center there. One of the major research projects at the site will involve the further development of particle accelerators. “The Russians are experts in research in this area,” says Dr. Martin Gitsels, who manages CT in Russia.

Siemens is working with the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics in Novosibirsk, the University of Frankfurt, the GSI Helmholtz center for heavy ion research in Darmstadt, Germany, and the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP) in Moscow on the development and production of a radio-frequency high-performance generator for linear particle accelerators.

The generator, which will use silicon carbide-based semiconductors invented by a CT research team headed by Dr. Oliver Held, will be the key component in the development of powerful linear accelerators that will be much smaller and more compact than current models. The scientists involved in the project hope they can build facilities that are around four times smaller than current facilities, which sometimes need to be 100 meters long. The new technology is also expected to have an efficiency rating above 70 percent in comparison to an efficiency of 40 to 50 percent for current solutions such as klystrons, magnetrons, and traveling wave tubes. Such devices will be configured as stand-alone solutions, i.e. as a replacement for a klystron, or as integrated solutions, where they are part of the accelerating structure itself.

The first modules with silicon carbide transistors based on CT technology have an output of up to three kilowatts and have already been developed and tested. Even more powerful transistors are now being planned, and concepts have been developed for combining several dozen radio-frequency modules to form a three-megawatt generator. These types of radio-frequency generators can be used for scientific experiments and in industrial applications.

Research projects like these are very much in tune with the Russian government’s strategy of developing the country’s innovative strength. The improved integration of education, science, and industrial applications is meant to create a national innovation system that will generate new momentum for Russia’s sustainable economic growth.