From August 2019
Siemens’ global business with industrial steam turbines is managed from Görlitz. Industrial steam turbines developed, planned and manufactured in Görlitz are used, for example, in biomass systems, solar thermal systems and power plants with combined energy generation/heat extraction. With around 800 employees, Siemens in Görlitz is an important industrial employer. Based on this responsibility, the Siemens site will actively help shape the structural change in Lusatia in the future: Siemens, the Free State of Saxony and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft want to set up an innovation campus and “start-up accelerator” on the factory site in Görlitz. The goal is to attract further technology and industrial companies, start-ups and research institutes.
The focus on digitization, automation, energy technology and innovative material and manufacturing technologies. Siemens and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft will also set up a laboratory for hydrogen research on the campus, in which the generation, storage and use of hydrogen will be investigated. In the long term, Görlitz will be developed into a competence center for hydrogen technologies.
In addition to the innovation campus, Siemens will continue to expand its research and development activities in the area of “decarbonized industrial processes” at the Görlitz site. Siemens researchers will investigate how hydrogen technologies can reduce CO2 emissions in energy-intensive industries and develop new, climate-friendly solutions such as storage technologies. As a contribution to the Climate Protection Plan 2050 and the structural change in Lusatia, Siemens wants to convert the site into a CO2-neutral factory by 2025. For this purpose, the process heat for the operation of the steam turbine test stands will be generated sustainably and the overall energy consumption will be reduced.
The Görlitz location has a long tradition. It all began in 1847 with the construction of textile machines. In 1868 the first steam engine left the machine factory. The first steam turbine was delivered in 1906. After the plant was dismantled in 1945, production stopped for a few years. It has been part of SIEMENS AG since 1992.
