The Audi Environment Magazine 2012 pptx

The use of the Combined Heat Power and Cold plant alone reduces CO₂ emissions from the Ingolstadt plant by 17,200 tonnes per year.. Since 1999, an efficient Combined Heat Power and Cold

The Audi Environment Magazine Issue 2012

The Audi Environment Magazine

2012

The Audi Environment Magazine

2012

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2 Encounter Environment 3 Encounter Environment

Building and producing sustainably:

Architect Thomas Rau and Frank Dreves, Audi

Board Member for Production, in discussion.

Loss turns to gain:

Recuperation technology in Audi production.

Audi’s steps along the way

to CO₂-neutral vehicle production.

Passionate about the environment

Audi employees and their very personal commitment to nature.

94 Densely Populated

Bacteria clean water, batteries live longer – environmental protection

at the Brussels plant.

98 Pushed to the Limits

How the use of innovative technology helps people to break through barriers

132 Greenovation

Audi is developing environment technologies in close cooperation with universities.

Always in the picture –

a monitoring system replaces paper build notes in assembly.

140 Audi Environment Foundation

Trees, bees and bioneers – Audi Environment Foundation projects

in detail.

146 Glossary

Brief explanations of the terms used

in this document.

148 Audi Environment Policy

Preamble and principles of the Audi Environment Policy.

166 ImprintContents

“It is the future that lays down the law for our today.” This

quote by Friedrich Nietzsche can also be applied to our present time

Raw materials are finite; the price of energy is rising and, not least,

climate change has to be stopped For us as a company, this means

that we have to establish today how we want to exist sustainably

At Audi, we want to ensure a future worth living for our

employees and for our customers, as well as for future generations

And we believe that success cannot be measured in financial figures

alone – for us, success is expressed in many ways Among the most

important is ecological responsibility This is something that we

live and breathe every day at Audi – not because we have to, but

because we believe it is the right thing to do We are not waiting for

pressure from without The best ideas at Audi come from within We

are proud of our pioneering spirit that has made our company what

it is today – and that continues to drive us “Vorsprung durch Technik”

therefore also stands behind our environmental commitment

We have made a promise to the future – with the scious use of raw materials and energy, we are moving step-by-step toward the CO₂-neutral factory, because the mobility of the future has to be CO₂-neutral That means not just the drives for our cars, but also their production

con-It will always take energy to produce cars But we will derive this energy in an ecological way To achieve this, we are fol-lowing new paths in many areas of our company, researching new technologies and constantly looking beyond our horizons At our Ingolstadt plant, we were the first to implement a Combined Heat Power and Cold facility back in 1999 District heating and heat re-covery systems are further examples of ‘clean’ production

At all of our factories, people are working every day to achieve our goal of CO₂-neutral mobility – because ecological re-sponsibility is not a matter for one person We must all take it se-riously – we must all understand, live and breathe environmental pro tection Whether we use bacteria in Brussels to clean waste water, or recuperation in our production; whether we bring our cars

to the container port with the ‘green train’ or breathe new life into used ancillary units; whether our employees restore rivers in their spare time – we are sticking resolutely to our path With ideas that may sometimes be a little ‘different’ – but that’s how we are at Audi

Allow yourself to be surprised by all these ideas

Happy reading!

We have made a promise to the future

With the conscious use of raw materials and energy, we are

moving step-by-step toward the CO₂-neutral factory.

Frank Dreves

Frank Dreves, Member of the Board

of Management of AUDI AG, Production.

The efficient solar modules avoid around 250 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions and contribute to making Ingolstadt a CO₂-neutral site.

→ page 14

250

CO₂-neutral

prerequisites of a CO₂-neutral site The innovative photovoltaic installation on the roof

of bodyshell manufacturing for the new A3 generates around 460,000 kilowatt hours of renewable electricity every year.

Standby

However, it shouldn’t just be on standby, but switched off completely

A3 bodyshell manufacturing is equipped with an intelligent switch-off concept that reduces energy consumption during downtimes.

80

Intelligent weekend shut-down reduces the standby electricity consumption

of equipment in building N 60 by up to 80 percent.

→ page 30

forming in Audi production is the result of carefully thought through planning

Production and Works Planning at Audi takes a holistic approach Ergonomics, efficiency and resource conservation take front and center.

The use of the Combined Heat Power and Cold plant alone reduces CO₂ emissions from the Ingolstadt plant by 17,200 tonnes per year.

→ page 42

Building the future

for buildings as they do for building cars The efficient use of energy is what distinguishes CO₂-neutral buildings and the CO₂-neutral site.

Mission possible

CO₂-neutral plant

At Audi, CO₂-neutral mobility starts at the factory

In the forseeable future, Audi will declare the Ingolstadt site CO₂-neutral.

16 Encounter Environment 17 Encounter Environment

Text

Patricia Piekenbrock

Illustrations

Büro Achter April

“A car’s carbon footprint has to be wiped out before it drives its first kilometer,” says Frank Dreves with conviction As Member of the Board of Mana ge-

ment of AUDI AG responsible for Production, he is working

inten-sively on the improvement of the CO₂ balance, during the “birth

phase” of a new car And he doing so with considerable success –

Audi is on its way to a carbon-dioxide-neutral site in Ingolstadt

That means that electrical and thermal energy comes entirely from

regenerative sources – from biogas plants to hydropower “Cars and

their production should have as little negative impact on the

envi-ronment as possible,” stresses Dreves “Audi is linking sustainable

mobility with a climate-neutral site.”

Peter Kössler has been working for Audi for the last 25

years “The growth of the company during this time has been

enor-mous,” relates the Works Manager for the Ingolstadt plant In

1986, Audi put around 350,000 cars on the roads; in the record

year of 2011 it was more than 1.3 million A total of more than

580,000 of them were produced at the company’s headquarters in

Ingolstadt, as were a large number of components, delivered to

other locations in AUDI AG’s global network of production facilities

In spite of increasing production volumes and although the current

models are considerably more complex and equipped with far more

sophisticated technologies, overall energy consumption has

re-mained at a stable level

The reduction in energy consumption and associated

emissions has long been a central issue in the further development

of the plant and production facilities Heavy heating oil was banned

as an energy source at Audi in 1983 It is made largely from

resid-ual material arising from the processing of crude oil and is still used

today in many power stations Its successor was the significantly

more environmentally compatible light heating oil – a very

impor-tant step at the time This contains considerably fewer impurities,

a lot less sulfur and does not require additional heating prior to

combustion Back then, the transition to light heating oil avoided

5,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year

In 1992, however, Audi switched to natural gas, which

eased the CO₂ balance to the tune of 36,000 tonnes per year Since

1999, an efficient Combined Heat Power and Cold facility in

In-golstadt has been delivering heat, electricity and cold

simultane-ously – an extremely efficient plant and truly pioneering

achieve-ment by Audi This plant produces a good proportion of the required

electricity, heat and cold The very high overall efficiency of the

CHPC plant of almost 80 percent avoids 17,200 tonnes of

green-house gases per year compared with conventional technology

In 2004, a further, extremely forward-looking project

was the district heating connection to the city’s waste incineration

plant To date, the facility has been delivering more than 60,000

environmentally protecting Megawatt hours of heat annually,

avoiding a further 12,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year Last year even

saw Audi double its use of district heating to 120,000 MWh

Further steps toward 200,000 MWh of district heating are planned

Cars and their production should have as little negative

impact on the environment as possible Audi is linking sustainable

mobility with a climate-neutral site.

Frank Dreves

x Switch to light heating oil x

xReduction – 5,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per yearx

x Switch to natural gas x

xReduction – 36,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per yearx

x Switch to CHPC plant x

xReduction – 17,200 tonnes of carbon dioxide per yearx

x Switch to district heating x

xReduction – 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per yearx

18 Encounter Environment 19 Encounter Environment

The Ingolstadt paint shop is also operated in

accor-dance with the principle “recover heat instead of generating it”

Rotating air-to-air heat exchangers* are used throughout They are

enormously efficient – they can recover 60 percent of the heat

con-tained in discharge air This is worthwhile because the plant’s paint

shop moves a volume of around 4.5 million cubic meters of air per

hour through the paint booths alone This equates to the space in

Munich’s Allianz Arena In 2011, Audi replaced the existing 34

rota-ting air-to-air heat exchangers with new, more efficient rotarota-ting heat

exchangers At the Ingolstadt plant alone, this avoids more than

16,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year and 80,000 MWh of energy – the

annual heating requirement of around 7,400 single family homes

Alongside these large-scale projects, Peter Kössler also

directs his attention toward the smaller, sometimes rather

incon-spicuous measures “We take the entire issue very seriously – even

when it involves additional cost.” All workers, be they in production,

maintenance or planning, are urged to think about energy

effi-ciency in their personal working environments “And many heads

have many ideas.”

The engineers at the Ingolstadt press shop were able

to make a 66 percent energy saving by moving from hydraulic to

mechanical presses Together with a shorter stopping time for the

motors driving the presses, they avoid 50 tonnes of carbon dioxide

per year Thanks to innovative, electrically powered welding heads,

plant technicians in bodyshell manufacturing for the new Audi A3

have managed to dispense with the energy-intensive compressed

air network

Peter Kössler’s efficiency parade continues – new diode

lasers* and the latest battery chargers also save power, while

ef-ficient logistics avoid unnecessary journeys in all production areas

And, last but not least, the behavior of every single worker makes

a contribution – even when it is just a matter of switching off lights

in the common room when the break is over

Obviously, a lot of things have been tested and some

things discarded “We examine very closely where it makes sense

to implement innovative and energy-saving technologies,”

stress-es Kössler The parameters for using photovoltaic panels on the

roofs of parking garages and production halls were also examined

in detail Only solar modules optimized for recycling are permitted

on Audi roofs In fact, in cooperation with external partners, Audi

is testing several new kinds of modules in respect of their

efficien-cy, maintenance requirement and durability The results provide

important information for the further development of solar

mod-ules An innovative photovoltaic installation with particularly

en-ergy-efficient modules is currently on the roof of the hall where the

new A3 bodyshell is built Every year, they generate around 460,000

kilowatt hours of renewable electricity and avoid approximately

250 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions

x Switch to more efficient rotating air-to-air heat exchangers x

xReduction – 16,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per yearx

x Switch from hydraulic to mechanical presses x

xReduction – 50 tonnes of carbon dioxide per yearx

x Switch to innovative photovoltaic equipment x

xReduction – 250 tonnes of carbon dioxide per yearx

We are examining very closely where it makes sense to use innovative

and energy-saving technologies.

Peter Kössler

* See glossary, p 146 –147

20 Encounter Environment 21 Encounter Environment

The latest step towards a balanced atmospheric carbon

dioxide account is the supply of eco-electricity to the plant: “Since

January 2012, Ingolstadt has been supplied with electricity

gener-ated from renewable sources This means that more than 290,000

tonnes of CO₂ are avoided every year,” says Kössler with pleasure

The electricity is delivered from German and Austrian hydroelectric

power stations – exactly as and when it is needed The technical

prerequisites have been certified by TÜV Süd

“We want to make our own contribution, however,

in-dependent of the electricity supply from the Alps,” says Kössler

“We are considering wind turbines in the area close to our factory

That doesn’t mean that we want to replace the eco-electricity

gen-erated from hydropower It is about gaining additional energy from

renewable sources.”

“Our current success with environmental protection is

encouraging us to take further climate-related steps,” stresses

Kössler A next milestone in respect of CO₂ at the factory could be

to switch the fuel used entirely to biogas “We expect this to give

us a reduction in greenhouse gases of around 123,000 tonnes,”

explains Kössler Audi can also use the biogas derived from the

fermentation of biomass as fuel in the Combined Heat Power and

Cold plant, where it delivers a double benefit in terms of

environ-mental compatibility – it runs climate-neutral because the carbon

dioxide released into the atmosphere was previously contained

within the plants And, at the same time, its energy will be used

with a very high degree of efficiency

“We are also considering a biomass plant and a so-called

ORC power plant (Organic Rankine Cycle).” The biomass plant could

run on wood chips as a biogenic fuel The works manager sets a great

deal of store by this proposal, as it would burn only scrap wood like

off-cuts, landscaping material or waste wood from the forest

An ORC power plant – integrated into the existing CHPC

facility – could avoid at least 4,000 tonnes of CO₂ This power

sta-tion will recover valuable energy largely from the roughly

120-de-gree Celsius low-temperature waste heat The working materials

(in place of water vapor) are organic fluids with an exceptionally

low evaporation temperature that drive a turbine This means that

sensible use can be made of even a small temperature difference

– with heat that would otherwise be lost

These considerations show that climate neutrality is

already achievable for Ingolstadt And the other Audi sites are set

to follow suit Each already has an individual roadmap “In planning

the new facility at our Hungarian factory in Győr, we were able to

take into account the results from Ingolstadt right from the

begin-ning,” states Kössler

With groundbreaking technical innovations, Audi is

already contributing to major progress in the efficient

manage-ment of resources and carries the European Union seal for

out-standing environmental protection In 2010, the Ingolstadt site

received a special commendation for its environmental

manage-ment and dedication The plant was the first automotive facility to

receive the DEKRA certificate for the integration of the latest

Euro-pean standard on energy management systems into existing

struc-tures and processes The standard sets extremely tough demands

for a continual and systematic reduction in energy consumption –

and Audi meets these in full

x Switch to eco-electricity x

xReduction – 290,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per yearx

x Fuel supply 100 percent biogas x

xReduction – 123,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per yearx

x Commissioning of ORC power station x

xReduction – 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per yearx

Ingolstadt has been supplied with energy generated from renewable sources since January 2012 With this move, we are avoiding more than 290,000 tonnes of CO₂ every year.

Peter Kössler

22 Encounter Environment 23 Encounter Environment

People in production

Resource conservation and environmental protection

is a priority for Audi However, this is only possible through the dedicated involvement

of all employees One example – the Ingolstadt plant.

Team PlayersPeter Kössler, Works Manager of the

Audi Ingolstadt Plant.

24 Encounter Environment 25 Encounter Environment

Erich Deinböck, Paint Shop

Paint bath on idle:

Vehicle bodies receive their corrosion protection in the cathodic dip coating* process To ensure that the coating material retains its quality, the bath is completely recirculated once an hour “The pumps have to run continuously,” says Erich Deinböck, Paint Shop Production Manager “But not at the weekend.” During downtimes, a slower circulation rate is sufficient Deinböck continues: “We now use frequency converters to reduce the speed of the pumps This saves around 24,000 kilowatt hours of electricity every year.”

Tobias Braunstein, Press Shop

“We are saving around 1.4 million kilowatt hours of energy per year.”

his Audi coworkers “All our major advancements in efficiency and

resource conservation are thanks to the personal involvement of

every individual Alertness is an absolute must, as are

responsibil-ity and motivation.”

“Employees have to want environmental protection for

its own sake,”says Peter Kössler, who’s area of responsibility

ex-tends to 17,500 people “That calls for motivation from within.”

For the works manager this means a clear focus on objectives,

working together across different departments, stringent

pro-cesses and a strong work ethic on all levels Success is his

endorse-ment – as Audi’s showcase plant, Ingolstadt will be a CO₂-neutral

site in the foreseeable future

If a worker has an idea for improvement or saving

en-ergy within his own area it is noted on the ‘green list’ The same

applies to ideas born in the specially appointed “energy savings

teams” Every worker has the opportunity to present his efficiency

suggestions to the management directly and regardless of

hierar-chy Within this body, the ideas are discussed openly and receive

support for concrete implementation in day-to-day production

The intention is for Kösslers people to feel united across all levels and to be passionate not only in addressing the overall picture, but also in developing their attention to detail The culture process known as ‘Imagine’ was established by the works manager

in 2007 and is specifically aimed at achieving this Peter Kössler is opening up new latitude to his people – at times with unconven-tional initiatives

Last year, Kössler organized a one-off management conference involving the entire first level of operational manage-ment – the foremen of the Ingolstadt plant The objective was to communicate to this level of management the ideas of ‘Imagine’

and the vision ‘We are generating an enthusiasm for Audi’ At the end of the day, production foremen in particular should be proud

of what is achieved at Audi As part of this event, Kössler specified the construction of a technically complex and imposing course made from model car race track and domino tiles The production foremen were then able to experience the meaning of a high-per-formance system in a light-hearted manner In a chain reaction involving around 20,000 domino tiles and a host of special effects, the miniature cars with friction motors were sent around a large globe – a huge achievement by all involved that generated enor-mous enthusiasm

Bernhard Kerner and Reinhard Mayershofer, Brake Disc Manufacturing

Clever diversion:

The machining of brake discs, known as turning, produces dust and heat “We no longer blow the warm air outside,” explains Reinhard Mayershofer, a technician in brake disc manufacturing “We have turned waste air into recirculated air and now use the heat from the turning process* to warm the hall,” continues his coworker Bernhard Kerner By converting the equipment to recirculate the air, around 582,000 kilowatt hours of valuable energy are saved every year

— 1,400,000 kWh

— 24,000 kWh

— 582,000 kWh

* See glossary, p 146 –147

26 Encounter Environment

The Schefflenz snakes and babbles its way around green islands Wild ducks sun themselves Shoals of fish ca-vort in the clear water, while gray herons wade through the reeds at the bank – an idyll for which Martin Förch fought very hard

Two years ago, bulldozers advanced to straighten the stream near Allfeld, north of Neckar-sulm, for a flood protection project However, because the construction work would have destroyed the natu-ral habitat of many stream residents, Audi employee Förch began campaigning to protect and restore the stream Shortly before construction started he was able

to recover the fish from the affected area and bring them to another part of the stream that would not be impacted by the work

It is also thanks to Förch’s initiative that the reconstruction of the stream was designed more sus-tainably than had originally been planned For instance, islands were integrated into the river to serve as breed-ing grounds for ducks and other birds Rocks in the stream offer sanctuary for fish, and they can lay their eggs in the coarse gravel “My aim is to return the stream

to its original state and to fill it with sustainable life,” says Förch summing up his concerns

Together with the Allfeld angling

communi-ty, Förch is also taking care of the stream’s husbandry For the amateur anglers this means clearing the banks, disposing of debris and looking after the tree popula-tion In order to secure fish populations in the Scheff-lenz on a sustainably basis, Förch is now planning a so-called breeding box project, which involves removing and then incubating fertilized trout eggs

Restoring a stream

Martin Förch – the amateur angler is actively

involved in restoring a stream.

Passion!

Passionate about the environment

Audi employees also take a private interest in nature – often with

considerable dedication They demonstrate their commitment

by taking care of animals or bodies of water or by participating in environmental

organizations or societies We bring you seven examples

My aim is to return the stream to its original state and to fill it with sustainable life

Passion!

Passionate about the environment

For us, it is always a wonderful experience to taste the first honey from our own bees It’s hard to imagine a more direct return on your commitment

Recent years have seen the depletion of bee populations become an increasing problem – this coin-cided with a reduction in the number of beekeepers that could take care of them It was this that inspired Kopp and Wansner to become involved They joined their local beekeeping association three years ago and estab-lished their own bee colonies The two men, who work as energy managers in Technical Development, now have

20 colonies in their care “For us, it is always a ful experience to taste the first honey from our own bees It’s hard to imagine a more direct return on your commitment,” says Michael Wansner Above all, how-ever, Wansner and Kopp are making an important con-tribution to the environment with their hobby, as bees maintain plant diversity with their pollination activities

wonder-“Working with bees is never dull Every co

lo-ny has its own character Their moods depend on the weather When the weather is bad, for instance, the bees are lethargic and more likely to sting And when the weather is good, they can’t wait to get going It is always exciting and varied,” says Andreas Kopp The engineers have planted the area in a bee-friendly way, with lupines, bee trees and plants like lavender, corn-flowers, chamomile and mint Alongside their eight bee-hives, they have also built a small material shed Kopp and Wansner carry out some “public relations” work for their favorite animals, too For their next project, they plan to prepare a hollow tree stump as a bee showcase – to offer interested parties a glimpse into a bee colony

Andreas Kopp and Michael Wansner

-The Audi beekeepers proudly present their busy workers.

Beekeepers

30 Encounter Environment

Making the bodyshell for the new Audi A3

A new, highly efficient factory for a new, highly efficient automobile – the bodyshell of the new Audi A3 is built with innovative technologies

on state-of-the-art equipment Efficiency and sustainability were the focal

point of the planning process for N 60 production hall.

N 60 – hiding behind the unassuming acronym is

the state-of-the-art bodyshell production facility for the A3.

35 Encounter Environment

Experience the state-of-the-art N 60 production hall and the production of the new Audi A3 on video!

www.encounter.audi.com

31 Encounter Environment

As bright as day – more than 2,000 square

meters of glass surface on the north façade deliver

a comfortable working climate.

Around 800 people and just as many robots work in the light-colored building on the northeast edge of the factory complex in Ingolstadt – efficiently

and with minimum use of resources As is the case everywhere at

Audi, the very best quality is the top priority Rainer Weiß, Specialist

Project Manager, Bodyshell Manufacturing, and Roland Fürholzer,

Head of Energy/Facility Technology, are full of praise for the new A3

and for “their” new bodyshell manufacturing facility, which was

con-structed specifically for this vehicle When it comes to hi-tech and

energy efficiency, both the building and the new production

equip-ment are just as good as the new car On an impressive 219 by 134

meters, the new hall offers an overall area of around 50,000 square

meters for production equipment alone Its height of more than

30 meters is divided into two production levels, each with three

vertical zones – the sovereign territory of this equipment reaches

eight meters into the air on both levels, followed by almost four

meters for the conveyor technology On the top level are the supply

bridges with ducting for ventilation, media, gas and electricity

To the north of the building is the logistics annex It

serves as both a handling area and buffer The parts required for

bodyshell manufacturing are delivered here on an area of around

4,300 square meters Dedicated “building vehicles” then take over

their onward transportation into the production hall – with zero

local emissions “We have laid out the production hall to enable the

individual parts to be supplied via the shortest possible route This

saves driving, energy and time,” explains Rainer Weiß

Two multi-level buildings flank the hall on either side

Inside are offices, common rooms for the workers and a diverse

range of technology areas The principle of efficient logistics

ap-plies here, too – workers take just a few steps from the factory door

to the changing rooms and are then quickly in the production area

The hall is automatically ventilated during the night; during the

day, however, the windows remain closed for energy reasons Plenty

of daylight floods the hall, thanks to more than 2,000 square

me-ters of glass on the north façade Nevertheless, around 3,000 lights

are still required and they, of course, need electricity However,

Fürholzer sets clear limits on their consumption Efficient

fluores-cent lamps with high light density are par for the course, as are light

sensors and an automatic light control system And to ensure that

nobody forgets to switch them off, there are movement sensors

Safety lighting and the access to the factory hall are equipped with

LED lights

The sun provides even more – on the roof of the new production hall, Weiß and Fürholzer present a state-of-the-art pho-tovoltaic installation Over an area of 7,500 square meters, mod-ules convert sunlight efficiently into electric energy “Through this system alone, we generate around 460,000 kilowatt hours of elec-tricity per year that we can use virtually loss-free in the hall,” ex-plains Fürholzer That equates to the annual energy supply for around 140 single family homes and saves 245 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions The ongoing search for savings potential is par-ticularly rewarding in bodyshell manufacturing because, at around

14 percent, it is the second largest energy consumer in the process chain after the paint shop 38 percent is required for the compo-nents and equipment, 28 percent for heat, 27 percent for ventila-tion and, finally, seven percent for lighting And to stay continu-ously on top of the kilowatt hours and carbon dioxide emissions, the company takes an holistic approach Every employee is tasked with delivering ideas from his or her individual working environ-ment The in-house training institute Audi Akademie offers the qualification program “Energy Productivity in Manufacturing”, a training course at the Institute for Machine Tools and Mana ge ment Studies, which is part of the Technical University of Munich In vig-

or ated by facts on consumption analysis and optimization ods, employees are trained on how they can make their own per-sonal contribution to the reduction of environmental damage

meth-Rainer Weiß, Specialist Project Manager, Bodyshell

Manufacturing, and Roland Fürholzer,

Head of Energy/Facility Technology, ensure energy-efficient production.

37 Encounter Environment

Employees can already directly apply their know-how

in energy reduction in the manufacturing hall of the new Audi A3

Every single vehicle cell is equipped with an open and easy-to-read energy consumption display The counters show the current energy and compressed air consumption of a specific piece of equipment

Thus, every employee can spot changes and, if necessary, take tion against an energy loss

“In selecting the system components, we took into count the expected energy consumption over the equipment life-cycle We also conducted an extensive study in order to understand better the influence of load, size, weight and speed on the electric-ity consumed by a robot,” explains Rainer Weiß The reduction of mass to be moved by robot is an important aspect of this As a re-sult, the technologies of modern lightweight design are not pure-

ac-ly the preserve of efficient Audi models, but can also be found in the new production hall Rainer Weiß points to the new roof fram-er*, part of which is made from carbon-fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP)*; “Compared with steel variants, this is 70 percent lighter.”

The fixing of the vehicle roof is thus significantly faster and sumes less electricity

con-Production facilities for bodyshell manufacturing on this scale consume ca 1,300 MWh per year in electrical energy on weekend standby alone But even the most efficient equipment needs to take a break from time to time In which case, it should not be put on standby, but switched off completely Using an intel-ligent switch-off concept, electricity supply is maintained to only the SPS control and a few service computers – meaning that the standby figure cited above can be reduced by up to 80 percent

Technicians have expanded the intelligent switch-off concept to all PCs, operating consoles, monitors and the central equipment monitoring system Switching off this equipment at the weekend saves further electricity One special case is the control cabinets – these unassuming nerve centers cannot be completely switched off for safety reasons “We are transferring certain control components out of the control cabinets directly into the equip-ment, and combining several functions into modular units.”

Welding guns are the key tool for the production of a solid and precise vehicle bodyshell Until now, they were operated pneumatically, which requires an expensive and energy-intensive compressed air network Rainer Weiß has equipped the new hall with the latest generation of welding guns driven by electric motors – they are faster and require less maintenance than their pneu-matic predecessors, and improve working conditions, too, because they are only half as loud The innovative welding equipment is just one of many examples of how Weiß and Fürholzer have pooled their diverse know-how Buildings technology and equipment technol-ogy complement one another very efficiently “For cooling the welding equipment, we divert a proportion of the service water* from the town’s waste water line directly into our hall,” says Roland Fürholzer The water is heated from 12 to 17 degrees in a heat ex-changer and then fed back into the main line and onward to other consumers within the plant “This idea saves one quarter of the cooling power required for the equipment and therefore 760 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year A customer could drive more than 5.6 million kilometers in an Audi A4 2.0 TDI with that!”

Lasers have become a fixed feature of modern bodyshell production; since the turn of the century, they have been a common tool in material processing Precision welding, soldering, cutting or curing are not a problem for this high-energy light – the price, how-ever, is relatively high electricity consumption For this reason, the experts at Audi have replaced conventional solid state lasers with powerful compact disc and diode lasers*, which are more efficient

On standby – switching off bodyshell manufacturing equipment

at the weekend saves around 1,300 MWh of energy per year With intelligent shut-down technology, consumption can

be reduced by up to 80 percent.

80 %

Precision work – during production-related

downtime, robots and equipment immediately go directly into energy-efficient standby mode.

36 Encounter Environment

Welding work – modern robots join bodyshell

parts with extremely low energy consumption.

* See glossary, p 146 –147

40 Encounter Environment 41 Encounter Environment

One particularly powerful combination of lasers and

welding in the production of the new A3 bodyshell is remote laser

welding technology To build a vehicle door, the laser beam is

guid-ed using a robot scanner with pivoting mirror optics It jumps

ex-tremely quickly from one seam to the next For 50 seams at a length

of 25 millimeters each it needs just 26 seconds The complex

turn-ing and positionturn-ing of each workpiece is a thturn-ing of the past The disc

laser has no problem dealing even with bodyshell parts that are

awkward to access or that are made from different materials The

welded seams themselves are thinner and more precise – in keeping

with the brand’s consistently high quality standards

Comfortable working conditions for the workforce

in-clude a constant supply of fresh air In the production hall alone,

1.6 million cubic meters of air has to be completely exchanged

every hour – without drafts or the air feeling cold “We’re very

ef-ficient at this, too,” underscores Roland Fürholzer “The modern

ventilation center controls all air movements with an eye on

re-source conservation We even manage to recover some of the

en-ergy,” says Fürholzer

Rotating air-to-air heat exchangers* are the

energy-efficient solution for ventilating the factory hall Warm waste heat

is blown through the heat exchanger Honeycomb channels in the

four-meter diameter wheel store the extracted energy in one half

of the space, while cold outside air flows through the other half

Because it rotates at two revs per minute, the heat is transferred

from one airstream to the other, thus warming the cold outside air

The heat exchangers in the 16 ventilation units avoid a total of 207

tonnes of carbon dioxide The waste heat from the gelling oven is

used in a similar way to heat the supply air in the ventilation system

of the logistics bay and to generate warm water There are also

plans to display the energy-saving initiatives implemented by the

Energy/Facility Technology department online on a screen in the

visitor room to make them transparent to visitors, too

Energy recovery even takes place during transport of

the bodyshells Resources are conserved by recuperating energy

from the rack conveyor vehicle during braking and reusing it for

drive and lift operations, with any excess then fed into the

electric-ity grid Almost 46 tonnes of CO₂ and a total of 86,000 kilowatt

hours of electricity are saved this way – equal to the annual

electric-ity consumption of 25 single family homes

Be they large or small – Rainer Weiß and Roland holzer have worked together with specialists to consider countless measures for successfully reducing environmental damage while improving quality The tour through the modern production facil-ity for Audi A3 bodyshells makes quite an impression They even have an answer to the question regarding an apparently mundane part of everyday working life, i.e cleanliness A new system using coconut brushes facilitates cleaning without cleaning fluids and additives “Around four kilometers of tracks and paths must be cleaned in the hall every single day However, we haven’t yet calcu-lated how much CO₂ we are saving with this!”

Für-The N 60 production hall has around 50,000 square meters

for workers, robots and countless pieces of equipment

At around 4,300 square meters, the logistics annex functions

as interim storage and buffer

Environmentally-friendly

cleaning system – coconut brushes save on

cleaning fluids and chemicals.

Complex inner life – in the N 60

production hall, experts prove that

state-of-the-art technology,

efficiency and sustainability can be united.

Airy – a constant supply of air ensures a

comfort-able working environment Rotating air-to-air heat exchangers and an intelligent air management system ensure energy efficiency and reduce CO₂ emissions by 207 tonnes per year.

219 x

134 m

* See glossary, p 146 –147

44 Encounter Environment 45 Encounter Environment

Herr Rau, Herr Dreves, when it comes to ecological issues, politics and society are riddled with action for the sake of action in line with the trend

of the day You, on the other hand, have to take decisions that have very long-term consequences Does the topic of the day have any role to play in the struggle for more sustainability?

Frank Dreves: Politics, of course, have a role to play in

defining the framework in which we operate; and current changes within society are also reflected in the demands made by our cus-tomers However, as a company, we cannot allow ourselves to wait for these developments Instead, we have to act in advance – be-cause the comparatively long product and investment cycles in our industry demand it At Audi, we have a long-term strategy to im-prove on an ongoing basis not only the sustainability of our prod-ucts, but also of our production By way of example, since 1999 we have been using highly efficient Combined Heat Power and Cold (CHPC) Since 2004, the Ingolstadt factory has been supplied with excess heat from a waste incineration plant in the city of Ingolstadt

Our heat regeneration facilities in production save energy and duce carbon dioxide emissions With the CHPC alone, we have al-ready reduced the CO₂ emissions of the Ingolstadt plant by 17,200 tonnes per year In the long term, we want to multiply this figure

re-The same applies to water consumption – the plant is cally set up for the use of waste water that is recycled in an eco-logical closed-loop circuit and used multiple times These things don’t come into being because of external demand, but because

systemati-we feel a sense of responsibility It is completely independent of the politics of the day

Thomas Rau: Politics often has little to do with actual

necessity and more with whichever social lobby is the strongest at any given point in time In my actions, on the other hand, I am guided by what I believe to be my job For me, that means pushing forward system innovation Take, for example, the term “passive house” I don’t even like the sound of it – who wants to be passive?

I don’t want to approach the energy issue from the savings side, but instead create an active house that even generates energy We have built a school in the Netherlands that generates more energy than it uses – the excess goes into the sports hall and a neighboring

residential area Even the students’ body heat is used for this listic concept The question for me is – What are the values that we have to address in a new way? The economy is often a good deal farther ahead in that respect than politics

ho-Dreves: My objective is to make our factory sites

com-pletely CO₂-neutral In Ingolstadt, we have already taken a whole series of steps in this direction, and we will follow them system-atically at our other locations, too However, this can only be achieved

in a symbiosis of economy and ecology, because the money that we invest in achieving our objective also has to be earned Saving water costs money initially, but if you use the right technology, the invest-ment pays for itself within a relatively short period of time It is therefore completely feasible to unite short-term benefits with long-term objectives

Rau: The human being has short-term and long-term

needs We must fulfill them in a manner that is not at the expense

of others And this calls for new approaches

And what might they be?

Rau: The needs cycle of a customer is often completely

different from the lifecycle of a product Nowadays, customer needs sometimes change faster than the lifecycle of a purchased device Almost all of us have an old computer or stereo standing around in the cellar or attic that proves this point Therefore, the customer should purchase a specific function or service and not the device itself He or she would buy, for example, “ten years of music”

or “30 years of floor coverings” This would create a whole new centive for change That is also what I mean by system innovation

in-Dreves: A building is a kind of generational contract If

you build a parking garage with more than 8,000 spaces, you don’t tear it down tomorrow It carries into the next generation Before

we talk about the future, we have to take a look at today Even the construction of a single family home is fraught with many ques-tions – especially when it comes to sustainability What building materials do you want to use? What form of insulation? What is recyclable? You can imagine that these questions are far more com-plex when it comes to the construction of an office block or a pro-duction hall In this situation, I have to make a lot of decisions and carefully weigh up one solution against another Because if you are striving for CO₂-neutrality as the main objective, the very first steps you take have to be the right ones

CO₂-neutral – in 2006, Rau converted the Dutch

headquarters of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) into a CO₂-neutral building It even has nesting areas for birds and sleeping facilities for bats.

CHPC plant

For optimum energy efficiency – in Ingolstadt,

Audi uses a Combined Heat Power and Cold plant

It achieves excellent efficiency of 78 percent

Together with district heating, it makes an important

contribution to a CO₂-neutral site.

46 Encounter Environment 47 Encounter Environment

Rau: A private builder/owner often has no idea what

questions have to be asked And when he asks them, he receives

the wrong answer In our office we say – built space is a service I

talk with my clients about the service quality he wants How I then

translate that into technology and construction is then a matter

for the experts If you give me a job, you simply have to define to

me the parameters – I want a house of a certain size, I want a

posi-tive energy balance, I want an optimum interior climate, I want

only building materials that have been proven not to be harmful to

health, and so on As the customer, you don’t have to think in terms

of solutions, materials or products Instead, you have to articulate

the “performance” that you desire Just like a car customer who

says: I want a fancy car for four people that has a range of 400

ki-lometers and an energy consumption equivalent to three liters of

gasoline per 100 kilometers Whether that works best with a

com-bustion engine, a hybrid or an electric motor is then a matter for

the engineers Architectural demands should really be couched in

these terms

Dreves: And how many architects of this kind are there?

Rau: Not very many But architects, too, must realize

that they can’t build any old monument at the customer’s cost

Architecture is a spatial service, a service for people I have to

cre-ate places for people in which they can realize themselves And then

buildings will also be far less expensive Our buildings today are

much too expensive because we build things that we simply no

longer need The Romans, for instance, cooled all public buildings

– and without the use of electric air conditioning Nowadays you

can cool offices by intelligently laying the water lines used for toilet

flushing – actually a very simple solution

Dreves: I agree In order to achieve something good it

isn’t always necessary to have big ideas – often it’s the small steps

that achieve a great deal In our works halls, for example, we no

longer use epoxy resin floors, but simply colored screed That may

sound dull at first, but it avoids a waste issue at a later date

Does that also benefit the people who work here?

Dreves: In everything I do, I always try to put people at

the center point They are priority number one at Audi – and our

most important resource And when we manage to simplify a

pro-cedure through a new process or a new tool, then it is always also

good for the quality of the product – and that is how we are

mea-sured In the paint shop, the employees used to be stuck in

protec-tive suits to shield them from the paint particles Today, we can

control the airflow – and thus the paint application – so precisely

that they are no longer necessary Production is more efficient,

cleaner and the working environment of the individual more

pleas-ant And the improvements that are made at the suggestion of the

employees are usually also the most sustainable For me, it is

there-fore important that my coworkers “learn to see”; that they

them-selves discover what they can improve When they then notice that

their ideas have been taken on board, it is highly motivating

Rau: We are spiritual beings And certain

communica-tion only takes place when people get together That’s how tion occurs That doesn’t happen on Facebook Before we start work

inspira-on a cinspira-onstructiinspira-on, I invite all of the workers to a presentatiinspira-on I tell them how the design of this building was originated and what it is they will actually be working on This gives them a very different and motivating connection to their work People need to identify with what they are doing And you have to build this connection

Let’s stay with people for now They want to

be proud of something, and proud of what they own

Herr Rau, you want to move away from ownership and toward the usage of products.

Rau: In my opinion, the question of ownership is key I

believe that we identify ourselves far too much by the things that

we own – the car, the house or the latest-generation cell phone Two years ago, I decided to clear my office of as much ownership as possible I invited a lighting manufacturer over and said to him: “I would like to have light I’ll buy a certain quality of light from you for 365 days a year.” And it works

Audi shouldn’t sell cars anymore?

Rau: In my concept, the car and therefore all the raw

materials for the entire lifecycle remain in the possession of the manufacturer, as a rolling store of raw materials You could say that the raw materials are temporarily configured in the form of a car

And sometime in the future, these raw materials can then be reused

to create something else This is somewhat different from partial recycling

For me, being sustainable means dealing with resources in such a way as not to lose them Everyone that comes to this earth should be able to benefit from them, in future, too

Thomas Rau

Christiaan Huygens College

CO₂-positive – the Christiaan Huygens College in Eindhoven

is the first CO₂-neutral and energy-producing school in the Netherlands The classrooms, for instance, are warmed by body heat Unused excess energy goes to a nearby residential area.

Audi A3 bodyshell manufacturing

For the new Audi A3 – Audi built a completely

new production hall with the latest in energy efficiency,

as a contributor to a CO₂-neutral site.

48 Encounter Environment 49 Encounter Environment

As a consequence, it would mean that Audi would no longer sell cars, but rather mobility That car is only made available

to the customer for a defined period of time to provide a defined service And because the company itself has to bear the conse-quences of a good or a bad design itself, cars will probably look different And that is how we get innovation We have to take the step from consumption to usage

Dreves: Nevertheless, we can’t forget about the

per-sonal pleasure of ownership The car has a powerful emotional mension for people In that way, it is very different from a television

di-or a washing machine We will certainly continue to sell our cars However, that doesn’t preclude us from thinking in parallel in very different directions There will surely be changes in usage behavior – how fast and to what extent this kind of rethinking will take place will only become evident over time

Are there already any examples of such concepts.

Dreves: We are currently using a number of different

projects to test what our customers really expect from such cepts and, first and foremost, what they actually need Of course,

con-we are also doing this under the premise of economic feasibility One example is the Audi urban concept, a compact electric car for city traffic We are currently discussing the idea of a low-volume run with an innovative leasing model

Sustainability has become a buzzword that can be interpreted in all sorts of ways What does sustainability mean

to you, personally?

Rau: For me, sustainability has to do with mindset, not

with solutions All the resources of this world are common erty that has been made available to humanity And the question

prop-is – How do we deal with that? For me, being sustainable means dealing with these things in such a way as not to lose them Everyone that comes to this earth should be able to benefit from them, in future, too So far, we have been economizing the ecology Instead, we have to ecologize the economy

Dreves: And for me, that mindset has to do with

con-servation I was brought up not to waste things, but to feel a sense

of responsibility for them If we take responsibility actively and on

a long-term basis, it means acting in the interests of a good ity of life for future generations of employees and customers At Audi, we implement this responsibility in the way we deal with our employees, in our products and, above all, in their production, too And our responsibility doesn’t stop as soon as our cars roll off the lot We look at the entire process chain – through to recycling our cars If you systematically examine and improve every single step, then it is no longer necessary to talk up sustainability At Audi, we have been thinking and acting this way for a very long time, without talking about it very much That, too, is ‘learning to see’

qual-“I can’t build anything else than sustainably Our bodies are amazingly regulated They can regulate themselves with very simple means Why shouldn’t that work for a building?” This is the principle adhered to by Thomas Rau He has been the owner of the RAU architectural office in Amsterdam since 1992 He would like to de-sign his buildings to extract their energy from their surroundings, thus making them CO₂-neutral Rau also sees people as a factor that can not only consume en-ergy, but also generate it

Rau lives and works in the knowledge that every action has an effect – ecological, economical and social And this is why, with every project, the architect takes into consideration the history of the site, the needs of the occupier and the local surroundings

Whether a building is public or private, Rau

is far from reaching the end of the road in his search for intelligent alternatives for saving energy For him, one thing is clear, “why build CO₂-neutral, when you can also build CO₂-positive?”

If you systematically examine and improve every single step,

then it is no longer necessary to talk up sustainability At Audi,we

have been thinking and acting this way for a very long time.

Frank Dreves

Rotating air-to-air heat exchanger

Effective heat recovery – in the Ingolstadt paint shop

alone, rotating air-to-air heat exchangers avoid the emission

of more than 23,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year.

Natuurcafé La Porte

Innovative revolving door – when they enter via

the revolving door, guests at a café in the Netherlands are

generating some of the energy required to

make their coffee through a kind of dynamo technology.

Thomas Rau oneplanetarchitecture

It is clearly evident in the high-energy

at-mosphere of a dance floor – the human body is a power

station and every movement produces energy One

breath generates roughly 1 Watt and every step around

70 Watts Chemist Michael McAlpine from Princeton

University in the USA had the idea of making practical

use of this energy So he put nanometer thin strips of

piezoelectric crystals – known as PZT (Lead Zirconate

Titanate) – into a rubber-like silicone membrane

Inte-grated into clothing or shoes, this ‘piezo rubber’

con-verts the body’s kinetic energy into electricity via the

mechanical deformation of the membrane This can

then be used to supply power to small electronic

de-vices such smartphones or pacemakers It would also

be conceivable to lay this piezo rubber into heavily

traf-ficked flooring, such as the dance floors in clubs on

which thousands of people release energy that is simply

there for the taking

Power dancers – piezo rubber in the dance floor

converts human energy into electricity.

Body Power

Magazine

Only those who look beyond their own

horizons can evaluate and build on their own progress

Sustainability news from around the world

For further information see

www.princeton.edu

High tide and low tide – the sea is

constant-ly in motion Through the gravitational pull between earth, moon and sun, the tides represent an inexhaust-ible source of energy Swedish company Minesto has developed a completely new principle for the use of tidal energy In contrast to conventional stationary tidal power plants, the ‘Deep Green’ project uses mobile turbines that are fitted with a wing and tethered to the seabed with cables, like buoys The turbine moves with the tides and currents like a kite in the wind

This hydrodynamic technology is thy for its relatively high energy yield at comparatively low cost It is ideally suited to deep seas and low current velocities, i.e places not best suited to the use of sta-tionary equipment First pilot projects off the coast of Northern Ireland are currently in the planning stages

notewor-A simple outlet is not enough The mobility of the future calls for a widespread and intel-ligently organized network of charging stations avail-able round-the-clock In the USA, Coulomb Techno lo-gies is already operating a well-functioning network of e-charging stations Around 5,300 ‘Charge Points’ are already installed on company parking lots, at shopping malls and on public parking lots, and the supply net-work continues to grow Energy providers offer their customers the opportunity to ‘fill up’ at these charging stations using a customer card It is then invoiced in arrears with a monthly electricity bill Payment by cred-

electro-it card is also available as an alternative The entire voice management process is handled by the electricity provider online via cloud server

in-The service is also very straightforward for the customer A smartphone app shows him all the sta-tions close to his location and whether they are cur-rently in service and available for use

 E-Charge Deep Green

E-Charge – acceptance of electromobility will stand or

fall on the quality of the supply network.

For further information see

www.coulombtech.com

E

50

The Puna, the highlands of the Andes in

northwestern Argentina, is at an altitude of almost

4,000 meters and the landscape has little to offer the

indigenous people Vegetation is meager and wood, the

traditional fuel, very hard to come by Migration is the

outcome, with all its associated social problems for the

cities The EcoAndina Foundation has set itself the task

of offering the people of the Puna another perspective

with the help of solar energy – because, if there is one

thing they have in excess, it is energy from the sun The

farmers of the Puna now do their cooking and baking

with solar ovens that are amazingly simple in their

con-struction and easy to build in-situ A mobile parabolic

mirror gathers and focuses the sun’s energy on a

hot-spot, sufficient to bring a pot of water to the boil in a

very short time or to heat a large oven to several

hun-dred degrees Celsius Further sustainable development

projects from the EcoAndina Foundation for the use of

solar energy include sun collectors for heating water

and homes, as well as solar power production Solar

modules supply electricity to pumps for irrigating fields,

as well as to satellite telephones and other

communica-tion equipment and media

elec-to our aid and wants elec-to make actual energy tion visible with a very enlightening idea The electric

consump-‘Power Aware Cord’ illuminates with varying brightness depending on electricity consumption The cable not only transports electricity, but also shows the consum-

er that electricity is currently flowing and being used

This optical aid is intended to ensure that electrical energy is used more consciously and efficiently in the household and that available potential for energy sav-ings is better exploited

Power Control

For further information see

www.tii.se

Skydrop

Water falls from the sky on its own – when

it rains In desert areas, this is a rather rare occurrence and, in catastrophic cases, there is often no time to wait for precipitation as a source of clean drinking water For such cases, relief is at hand from the ‘Skydrop’ The in-vention of Brazilian designer Murilo Gomes from São Paulo consists of a helium-filled airship equipped with fin-like rotor blades The rotor is driven by the wind and produces electricity The electricity flows through Peltier elements made from two semi-conductor materials with different energy levels The flow of electricity cools the Peltier element and this cooling leads to the con-densation onto the elements of moisture in the air This condensation is collected and channeled to the ground through a hose According to Murilo Gomes, the Sky-drop produced 50 liters of water per day in a test run

The ideal would be 200 liters, and even in dry desert regions with very low humidity, 10 liters per day would still be realistic

Air drops – the rotation of the Skydrop produces

electricity that causes the Peltier elements to cool and leads

in turn to the condensation of water.

A healthy person can hardly imagine this situation, but there are many patients confined to their beds due to paraplegia or neurodegenerative illness and able to communicate with the world only through eye movement Graffiti artist Tony ‘Tempt’ Quan from Los Angeles suffers from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and is one such patient His friends went all out

to help him and others in a similar situation – they veloped the ‘Eye Writer’ This is a standard glasses frame fitted with an optical system that follows every move-ment of the pupil and then uses software to convert this information into representative data Using Eye Writer, Tony Quan is once again able to draw graffiti and write texts through the movement of his eyes alone

de-The instructions and software for building

an Eye Writer have been made freely available in order

to enable those affected to make use of the technology

as inexpensively as possible

Eye Writer

Writing aid – with simple electronic components, a pair of

glasses can become a writing instrument.

For further information see

www.eyewriter.org

Interactive Institute

With new power.

Wind is energy Wind is life Wind is mobility Audi is using the wind, the clean force of nature,

to build an entire chain of sustainable energy sources.

Sun and wind – two amateur gliders fly over the Audi site to the north of

Ingolstadt, silently and with zero emissions.

Tailwind

The power of silence

Balloon flying means – trusting the wind

Man once conquered the skies in a balloon The great silence that prevails there is all the more fascinating today.

The great journey – Audi sends up hot air balloons from time-to-time,

for scenic tours or at events.

Close to the wind

For thousands of year, the wind moved ships and brought people to one another Today, sailing is no longer hard labor, but a fascinating sport.

Dedication – Audi supports sailing on several levels, such as the

Sailing Team Germany or at the Kieler Woche (Kiel Week).

Clean electricity

Wind is a driving force Electricity from wind will drive future e-tron models The Audi e-gas project, too,

is based on this CO₂-free primary energy.

Energy change – sustainably generated electricity, primarily from wind power,

already accounts for 20 percent of total energy usage in Germany.

to make methane (CH₄) The duct is water.

The process runs on eco-electricity.

tainable management of natural resources – a cornerstone on the

path to CO₂-neutral mobility

The A3 Sportback 1.4 TCNG*, which Audi presented at

the 2012 Geneva Motor Show as a technical model, is a feisty

all-round car Its forced-induction 1.4 liter-gasoline engine produces

81 kW (110 hp) and 200 Nm of torque – enough for a sprint from

zero to 100 km/h in a little more than 11 seconds and a top speed

of more than 190 km/h

“But the major advancement lies, of course, in its fuel

consumption,” says Reiner Mangold, head of the Audi e-gas project

“The 1.4 TCNG needs an average of 3.6 kilograms of regenerative

gas per 100 kilometers and emits only 99 grams of CO₂ per

kilome-ter from its exhaust If you consider the well-to-wheel* balance,

i.e the entire chain including the production of the fuel itself, it

works out at just 27 grams per kilometer.”

With the Audi e-gas project, which is now entering the

practice phase following three years of intensive research, Audi is

the first automaker worldwide to build a chain of sustainable energy

sources Audi wants not only to use eco-electricity to produce its

future electric e-tron models, but also to offer the clean energy to

its customers in order to run the cars

Wind energy from the North Sea will also supply a

facil-ity in Werlte (Emsland) that produces hydrogen via electrolysis It

can serve in future to drive fuel cell vehicles like the Audi Q5 HFC*

In the first project phase, however, the hydrogen will

not be used directly due to the lack of infrastructure Instead, it will

be fed into a storage tank and then to a methanization plant that

is currently under construction It is coupled to a waste biogas

facil-ity, from which it draws the concentrated CO₂ necessary for

meth-anization and that would otherwise pollute the atmosphere The

facility will produce around 1,000 tonnes of methane per year,

thereby trapping 2,800 tonnes of CO₂

At Audi, this methane is known as e-gas; it is

chemi-cally identical to fossil methane, the main element in natural gas,

and is therefore suitable for driving internal combustion engines

2013 will see Audi bring its first TCNG models into series

produc-tion Their TFSI engines have been converted to run on e-gas and

thus achieve an excellent well-to-wheel balance

1,500 A3 TCNGs can each drive 15,000 km per year on the e-gas generated from wind power and CO₂, with a further 150 tonnes left over for the public gas grid From the first phase of the e-gas project, the methane from the facility will be sufficient to power a total of 2,500 cars Over the coming years, Audi wants to expand its offering of regenerative fuels

According to Audi engineer Reinhard Otten, the tial of the Audi e-gas project can supply new impetus to the entire German energy economy “Our plans address the still outstanding question of how eco-electricity can be stored efficiently and inde-pendently of location When there is plenty of wind at sea, electric-ity over-capacity can be converted into e-gas and stored in the pub-lic gas grid The energy can then be fed back into the electricity grid

poten-at any time as required The gas grid is the largest available energy storage medium, with a capacity of 217 TWh The electricity grid,

on the other hand, can store just 0.04 TWh; plus, its transportation capacity is many times lower.”

e-gas production is thus a practicable solution for the use of excess green electricity that will inevitably be generated through the further expansion of renewable energies “The poten-tial of electricity/gas coupling to store large quantities of wind or solar energy can deliver substantial impetus to the expansion of renewable energies,” says Michael Dick, Audi Board Member for Technical Development “We are taking the initiative ourselves and complementing e-mobility with an equally climate-friendly con-cept for long distances.”

0–100 km/h ca 11 s Top speed ca 190 km/h Consumption ca 3.6 kg e-gas per 100 km CO₂ emissions 99 / 27 Gramm pro km**

** at the exhaust / in the well-to-wheel balance

Audi A3 Sportback 1.4 TCNG

Natural power –

ultimately, one minute of wind is enough for a 300 km drive with the A1 e-tron.

Power grid –

the wind power is fed into the public grid, where it is then distributed.

Hydrogen production –

the first step is to split water (H₂O) into hydrogen (H₂) and oxygen (O₂) using electrolysis.

Charging station –

an intelligent charging strategy stabilizes the electricity grid during charging of the A1 e-tron.

Sustainable mobility

Audi breaks new ground The company is aiming

to take a leading role in the sustainable management of natural resources, with the main goal of achieving CO₂-neutral mobility.

Hydrogen and e-gas production

The e-gas facility consists of two main components.

The electrolyzer produces hydrogen, while the methanization plant downstream produces the e-gas.

e-gas production –

the second step is for the facility

to produce methane from hydrogen and CO₂.

e-gas fuel station –

1,500 Audi A3 TCNGs can each drive 15,000 km per year on e-gas.

e-gas storage –

the methane from the facility is fed into the public natural gas network.

Audi A3 TCNG –

every gram of CO₂ emitted by the A3 TCNG was previously completely bound by the e-gas production process.

End product methane –

a combustible gas with a high energy content.

Green drive – the Audi A3 Sportback with e-gas

drive has minimal overall emissions.

68 Encounter Environment

When Friedrich-Franz Nagel goes diving, it is often for

a good cause The amateur diver combines his sport with environmental protection: “It is important to me that nature stays clean – by cleaning lakes, I am making my own small contribution.”

As the deputy chairman of the Ingolstadt Diving Club, the Audi employee from Pre-Production Lo-gistics manages the club’s many environmental initia-tives This primarily involves the cleaning of lakes in the region Equipped with neoprene wetsuits and bottles

of compressed air, the “cleaning troops” dive through the lakes and gather debris Nagel has found almost everything imaginable in the water – old bicycles, bat-teries, car tires and beer barrels … and even a pistol Not just the water, but also the banks of the lakes are cleared

of garbage by the diving enthusiasts

The divers also conduct regular lake ments Nagel and his team check several parameters such as water qua li ty, as well as the lake’s fish and water plant populations

assess-Another agenda item for the diving siasts relates to the indigenous swan mussel – it is hav-ing to compete with the smaller zebra mussel, which originated in the Caspian Sea The divers remove the zebra mussels in order to protect the indigenous spe-cies from starvation Always part of the action is daugh-ter and Audi apprentice Rebecca, who is also active with the club

enthu-The Ingolstadt man is particularly proud that, two years ago, the diving club adopted the Ein-bogenlohe, a former oxbow lake of the river Danube in the south of Ingolstadt, and has been taking care of it ever since “I hope that our activities also set an exam-ple – and inspire environmental awareness in others,”

says Nagel

Divers

Friedrich-Franz and Rebecca Nagel –

the diving enthusiasts are regularly underwater

in the name of environmental protection.

Passion!

Passionate about the environment

It is important to me that nature remains clean – by cleaning lakes, I am making my small contribution to that

Friedrich-Franz Nagel

70 Encounter Environment

A stray or injured bird has been sighted in the factory grounds! This calls for bird protection officer Gerhard Dörfler Always at the ready, he is on his way in double quick time when a bird is in danger and the Ingolstadt plant’s security office raises the alarm

In-situ, the Technical Service department employee takes care of the animal emergency, provides first aid and, in serious cases, even takes the bird home with him In his own care facility, Dörfler nurses the bird back to health, until it is ready to be released back into its natural environment “It is always a wonderful thing

to release a healthy animal back into the wild.” Dörfler

is self-taught and acquired all his skills and knowledge

on the care of birds 20 years ago through reading

Dörfler, who lives in Böhmfeld near stadt, now also looks after 38 nesting boxes on the fac-tory site He regularly examines their condition, cleans them and takes care of the wellbeing of their feathered occupants Those under his protection include swifts, gray herons, peregrine falcons and kestrels To Dörfler’s pleasure, it is not just the number of nesting boxes that has increased in recent years, but also the bird popula-tion at Audi overall “By creating new nesting areas, we can not only maintain the birds’ habitat, but also ex-pand it.”

Ingol-Birds

It is always a wonderful thing,

to release a healthy animal back into the wild

Gerhard Dörfler

Gerhard Dörfler – birds are in the

right hands with him.

Passion!

Passionate about the environment

The tool maintenance technician, who works

at the Neckarsulm plant, now takes care of three green lungs On one of his pieces of land, a small natural pond has even developed into an ecological marsh area Newts, frogs, tadpoles, dragonflies, grass snakes and blind-worms find refuge here During winter, the fertile ground

of this small piece of wilderness attracts larger animals like deer or boar that use it for winter grazing

The ambitious nature conservationist has set his sights on a new project – an area of meadow on a hillside near Sinsheim will soon serve as a retreat and food source for wild animals

Nature restoration

Jürgen Kreß – the nature conservationist returns

to nature, areas previously considered lost.

My aim is to create as many completely natural areas as possible,

to help balance out increasing land development

Jürgen Kreß

Passion!

Passionate about the environment

Factory from the virtual world

From material characteristics at a molecular level to process flow

in assembly, from fundamental research to the complete factory – Production

and Works Planning at Audi follows a holistic approach The specialists used their

net-worked knowledge to design the new factory in Győr The result is an efficient,

Arne Lakeit is responsible for Production and Works Planning at AUDI AG –

including the new factory in Győr (Hungary).

of the team is academics, including engineers, physicists, tion scientists, business graduates, as well as architects and ex-perts in logistics, local culture and environmental protection For them, the entire planning process runs largely in the virtual world

informa-Intelligent software tools, digital models, simulations, 3D ization and computer systems with professional data management form the basis for this work

visual-“Not only do we have a CAD model of the entire Győr factory, but also of all the individual installations and individual production processes,” explains Lakeit This means the efficient interworking of the systems down to the tiniest detail can be sim-ulated and mapped out before ground is even broken This digital factory not only closes the gap between theory and practice, it is also a key technological factor for sustainability and resource con-servation The planners have to reconcile environmental aspects with a worldwide network of factories and an expanding product portfolio “We are working in a multi-project landscape of ever-increasing complexity,” adds Lakeit

In order to account for these wide-ranging ments, Lakeit has built his organizational structure like a neuronal network The classic building blocks like paint shop, electrical and electronics planning, as well as assembly planning for individual model lines are linked to one another in accordance with the ques-tion at issue As soon as the planning processes are completed and the factory foundations are laid, the respective experts take their know-how to the next stage and start addressing the new produc-tion facility on-the-ground Similar to the approach in Technical Development, there is no need for complex transfers from person

require-to person Once a project leaves the initial research stage its perts stay with it all the way to series production “This is how people experience the enthusiasm of working with something from the first idea through to its real-life implementation It is incredibly motivating,” stresses Lakeit

ex-A new car is being shown Its image gleams

in the CAVE*, the three-dimensional tion room for illusions from the virtual world Perfect reflections

projec-of the surrounding countryside on the paintwork and the premium

look-and-feel of the interior make the car seem real You believe

you can reach out and touch it – but, for the meantime, it is just an

illusion, and the road to a series production model on the assembly

line is still long “We facilitate the transition from idea to a real

pro-duct for the customer,” explains Arne Lakeit, Head of Propro-duction and

Works Planning at Audi With his roughly 1,300 workers, he is

re-sponsible for the planning of all factories and production

process-es at Audi worldwide, including the factory expansion in Hungary

The Győr plant has been part of the Audi production

network and that of the entire Volkswagen Group since 1993 In

2010, 1.65 million engines were built here, plus 38,500 vehicles

from the Audi TT and Audi A3 model lines And this is set to grow

considerably in future – a brand new additional factory facility is

currently being built in Győr As of 2013, it will be the production

location for another model in the A3 lineup

Photo

Stefan Warter

Text

Patricia Piekenbrock

Virtual flight over

the Győr production facility

The factory from above – many

lay-outs were considered in order to

achieve the ideal arrangement of all

the various elements.

Press shop – the new factory

supplies itself with press parts via

the shortest route, with a rail

connection and located directly next

to the “customer” facility, body-

shell manufacturing.

Bodyshell manufacturing – the

new bodyshell manufacturing facility

will be flexible in its use of steel

and aluminum It can also be

expanded if necessary to meet future

requirements.

Paint shop – a “green” paint shop

with drastically reduced

emissions through techniques

like waste air purification.

Energy center – state-of-the-art

equipment with combined power and

heat supplies the new production

facilities in a way that conserves

re-sources.

Assembly – the assembly line is

notable for its optimum assembly

and logistics processes, synchronized

and standardized procedures and

pleasant working environment with

plenty of natural light.

to production with a very high level of planning quality.

77 Encounter Environment

Experience the fascinating work

of the Audi production planners on video!

www.encounter.audi.com

* See glossary, p 146 –147

78 Encounter Environment

Thanks to this unconventional network structure, the

planners are able to take advantage of a wide range of synergies

For instance, they are transferring the key discipline of

three-di-mensional visualization from vehicle development to factory

plan-ning in Győr The interaction of the different production areas –

from press shop, bodyshell production and paint shop to assembly

– is played out as if for real thanks to 3D animations Possible

prob-lem areas can be addressed at an early stage, even before the first

concrete is poured When it comes to structural engineering issues,

the planners are able to supply management with time-saving

bases on which to make decisions They can project images such as

design variants for building facades on the large screen in

crystal-clear 3D quality

“For us planners, the new construction in Győr is

natu-rally a huge challenge – also in respect of resource-conscious

logis-tics,” enthuses Lakeit The facility is laid out to enable the majority

of parts to arrive by train, saving almost 400,000 heavy truck

kilo-meters From delivery, through transportation within the factory

site to completion, the planners design all internal material

move-ments in order to avoid bottlenecks later At this early stage, it is

possible to incorporate an extra factory gate that may be required

later, without the need for expensive rebuilding work

It is already possible to take a virtual tour of this tory that is not due for completion until 2013 The heart of the production facility will be a central building for quality evaluation – more than a symbol for the clear quality orientation of the Audi brand Press shop, bodyshell manufacturing, paint shop and as-sembly are all arranged directly next to this center in a star layout

fac-All vehicle parts take the shortest route from one station to the next In every production area, energy is saved from the start wher-ever possible or at the very least regenerated Systems for recuper-ating heat from the air in the factory halls will be a standard fea-ture, as will a combined heat and power plant, exhaust gas heat exchanger and coolant treatment plant The layout of supply lines for electricity, gas, water, air and compressed air is planned in the digi tal factory to guarantee supply with the lowest energy losses

Following the rough planning phase, the planners start working through every level down to the last micrometer, analyzing the processes within the individual areas One example is the sim-ulation of the deep draw process* for a vehicle door in the press shop With the help of their calculations, they are able to define optimum material usage Multiple manufacturing is the keyword

In future at Győr, the car door will be formed in one and the same process step with two filler caps, made in the thus far unused win-dow cut-out This saves times, energy and hundreds of tonnes of steel that would otherwise have to be recycled Material usage is improved by no less than 13 percent, thanks to reduced cuttings

In the foundry, virtual analyses of the aluminum pressure casting process contribute to optimization of the subsequent process – is the main gate in the right position during mold filling? What are the temperature characteristics while the part is solidifying? Is there any material distortion after cooling? “These are all essential questions that my people have answered well in advance of produc-tion start,” explains Lakeit

Paint shop

Temperature simulation

Hotter than a sauna – following the application of the first coat of paint,

the bodyshell is put through a dryer The simulation shows how the bodyshell

heats up from 20 °C (blue) to more than 190 °C (red) This temperature is

required in order to cure the paint, as well as to provide optimum corrosion

pro-tection and good adhesion to the metal But other materials on the vehicle,

such as adhesives, must also be subjected to certain temperatures for a

sufficient period of time in order to achieve the desired characteristics The

simulation enables this to be addressed at an early stage.

Pressure die casting

Hardening simulation

We not only have a CAD model of the entire Győr factory, but also of all the individual installations and individual production processes

This digital factory not only closes the gap between theory and practice, it is also

a key technological factor for sustainability and resource conservation.

From liquid to solid – directly following the filling of the pressure casting

die, the molten aluminum cools in the hardening intervals shown from around

600 °C to circa 550 °C and the component hardens The simulation shows the cooling process step-by-step With the help of this information it is possible

to predict component quality and the mechanical characteristics of the part at

an early stage and to identify critical areas.

Arne Lakeit Head of Production and Works Planning

79 Encounter Environment

* See glossary, p 146 –147

81 Encounter Environment

Pressure die casting

Structure simulation

Right out of the mold – after removal from the pressure casting die, the

component continues to cool in the temperature range shown from around

300 °C (yellow) to circa 150 °C (blue) With the aid of the simulation, it

can be determined how the temperatures change during this phase, which

is where distortion is most likely to occur This forms the basis for further

calculations in order to predict the internal stresses and distortion of the

component and thus to provide an evaluation of the expected dimensional

accuracy of the part.

It is in bodyshell manufacturing that the individual parts and semi-manufactured products from the press shop take

on the form of a car Energy-saving lasers and robots work here with state-of-the-art joining technologies Because, in line with the Audi lightweight design philosophy – the right material in the right place – fiber-reinforced polymers*, sheet steel and aluminum must all

be welded, riveted or bonded This is a technological and energy challenge Lakeit offers an insight: “We receive the construction data from our coworkers in development Our specialists use the digital factory to determine the appropriate joining methods and the most efficient sequence of individual process steps From these results, we can derive the optimum relative positioning of equip-ment and facilities.”

Welding points are also used only where they are truly necessary, and adhesive does not have to be applied in a continuous line – while achieving the same guaranteed level of quality “By using intermittent seaming we save around one yoghurt pot of adhesive per vehicle,” clarifies Lakeit A further example of effi-ciency is the diode lasers* Compared with solid-state lasers, they are 30 to 40 percent more efficient – which will avoid 3,000 tonnes

of carbon dioxide at the new Hungarian plant alone

In the paint shop, the completed bodyshells receive the color selected by the customer The surface quality of the paint is enormously important for aesthetic reasons, as well as for durabil-ity, color consistency and scratch resistance Thus, the planners dive into the world of the very tiniest particles – atoms and mole-cules In cooperation with colleges and universities, they examine the molecular structure and layering characteristics of paints On this basis, they can use computational fluid dynamics (CFD)* to make firm statements on optimum paint application The forma-tion of unwanted drops at the atomizer of a spray robot, and fluid run-off in the dipping bath are things of the past The paint robots are set up quicker and more precisely for their tasks, so that they consume less paint and energy Production planners also save on complex and detailed testing when it comes to paint drying CFD modeling displays airflow, temperature distribution and heat dis-sipation inside the dryer

Assembly work is quite literally hands-on However, the many processes to be aligned are faced with a wide array of conflict-ing variables – time, utilization, material allocation, safety and

er go nomics With this in mind, the planners have developed a tool for virtual process scheduling Using this ingenious method, infor-mation on the manufacturing process is intelligently linked to three-dimensional product data and the necessary operational resources On this basis, every single process step can be gener-ated as a virtual representation

“We need qualified, experienced and motivated people, who bring with them their expertise and play an active role in de-signing the processes,” explains the Head of Planning “We see people as our most valuable resource.” To protect workers’ joints, for example, ergonomic aspects have top priority with the works planners At a very early stage in the project, they use virtual meth-ods to identify strenuous, taxing or awkward assembly positions Working with those affected, concrete measures are taken to im-prove this A height-adjustable assembly seat or a scissor-lift table

at the right point can ease the pressure on backs, hip joints or knees

“In special cases, our planners are assisted in this by coworkers from occupational health and safety, physiotherapists and the fac-tory doctor,” stresses Lakeit

“With the aid of the digital factory, we create a mutual basis of understanding and achieve a high degree of maturity at a very early stage,” says Lakeit He illustrates the issue using the ex-ample of age simulation – a specially developed “old age suit” clarifies the needs of older employees By restricting movement and diminishing sight, hearing and touch it enables others to ex-perience the process of growing older Against the backdrop of demographic change, the simulation suit thus provides valuable information to those involved in workstation design “However, people don’t age overnight They learn to deal with change as life progresses,” elaborates the Head of Planning The virtual world must always be verified by real-life experience When it comes to safety-critical issues like crash testing, virtual tests are always fol-lowed up with actual tests using real vehicles

Production and works planners at Audi are well aware

of these limitations “We are both experts and coordinators Through our control function we retain oversight and remain grounded,” states Lakeit, “Which is why we also put our future strategy to the test every year.” Because technological developments are dynamic and associated processes can change “The attention to people as

a resource is a definite prerequisite for environmentally sound duction with state-of-the-art technologies.”

pro-Is the main gate in the right position during mold filling?

What are the temperature characteristics while the part is solidifying?

Is there any material distortion after cooling?

These are all essential questions that my people have answered well in advance of production start.

Arne Lakeit Head of Production and Works Planning