Futuristic Circular Economy

Climate-Neutral Production

Transforming our economic system so that it performs without emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is the greatest challenge of our day. The manufacturing industry not only provides solutions that enable its customers to act in a sustainable and climate-neutral manner, it is also faced with the task of minimizing its own CO2 footprint. The Mechatronics Cluster pursues the vision of solving this challenge through cross-company and cross-industry cooperation.

The topic of energy efficiency is not new for the Mechatronics Cluster in Lower Austria. Various building blocks on this topic have already been implemented in recent years:

  • Already starting in 2010 with the two projects “Eco2Cut” and “Eco2Production”, the question was explored as to where the energy consumed in machining production flows, and the easily measurable variable of energy was discovered to be a suitable indicator for finding productivity optimizations.
  • In 2014, the Energy Efficiency Act provided a far-reaching framework for such activities, obliging companies to reduce energy consumption on a rolling basis. In the “K 50.001” project, several cluster partners are working on setting up an energy management system that meets these requirements.
  • In the “BaMa” project, greater attention was paid to the interaction of different areas (production plant, building management, logistical processes) and simulation tools were used for overall optimization. In this way, the world of “Industry 4.0” could be linked to the issue of energy efficiency.

However, the challenges ahead call for even more comprehensive approaches. In the “Enterprise.Klima” project, companies have joined forces to tap the transformation potential that the challenge of climate neutrality holds in store and thus become pioneers of a new way of doing business.

In all of this, the Mechatronics Cluster can draw on a far-reaching network that includes specialists in manufacturing technology and energy optimization as well as digitization experts and consultants in the field of change management.

 

Examples:

Energy Efficiency Projects (eco2cut, eco2production)

"Enterprise.Klima" Project