Press: Intelligent energy-efficient

A promising future is predicted for the "Smart Grid". Experts regard it as the largest infrastructure project ever. Renewable energy sources such as wind or solar energy are likely to be used in power generation on an even larger scale. The previously clear distinction between energy suppliers and consumers will increasingly blur, as in future, the consumers of today will be generating more and more of their own electricity and feeding it into power grid. In addition, measuring instruments and control systems will have to ensure that electricity is used when it is cheapest. They will contribute to avoiding peak loads and to ensuring that plant is used with greater economically in terms of energy. The search for improved energy efficiency will again be the top priority. The prerequisite for this quantum leap in energy supply: Today's ageing power grids will have to be modernised.
The fact that the future has already started at Rittal, the leading supplier of enclosure and housing technologies, can be seen at the Hanover Fair, where the company is showing a variety of solutions for tomorrow's intelligent power grid. These products include, for example, RiCell Flex fuel cells, which have been nominated this year for the renowned international technology prize, the Hermes Award. Alongside their traditional use as an emergency power supply, they can also provide the energy to deal with expensive peak loads. Other innovations to be seen at Hanover are the cogeneration of heat and power (CHP) plants from Würz Energy, a sister company. In Hanover, Rittal and Würz will be showing how a Data Centre Container can be fed with environmentally friendly electricity and heat via a CHP unit, without any connection to the power grid being necessary.
"As leader in innovation, we listen carefully to our customers. The smart grid is one of the really big issues of the future - and Rittal is well positioned to make an important contribution to it", says Dr. Thomas Steffen, the Rittal Executive Vice President responsible for Research and Development.

Integration of unused energy sources
For many years, power utilities and industry have had to meet the challenge of dealing with peak loads. Generally speaking, electrical power grids are designed to meet the highest possible load. In other words, they are only used to the full at peak hours. For instance, peak loads occur during the morning, when production, along with pumps, air conditioners, and computers, and so on is started up. As a rule, energy suppliers make sure that it is expensive to consume peak power. That is why industrial consumers are keen to avoid or minimise peak loads. Traditionally, this had been performed by turning on particular energy-consuming equipment in sequence - or by installing a disconnection chain. Temporary access to existing energy sources is also conceivable. This may be through the use of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) or the batteries in the electric vehicles of the company car fleet. Rittal is working hard on solutions in this area: In Hannover, alongside new uninterruptible power supplies, the company is also demonstrating advanced power charging stations, and is advancing the issue of electromobility together with energy suppliers and automobile manufacturers.

Using renewable energies
Rittal is using renewable energies in the climate control of data centres, for example. The company has already gained a great deal of experience in the employment of geothermal energy at "Celler Brunnenbau", where it was able to increase energy efficiency significantly. Intelligent climate control solutions, that involve free cooling by using outdoor air, lead to a reduction in energy consumption. The use of energy efficient air climate control solutions in industry can lead to major savings of up to 45%, for instance by using the Rittal Cool Efficiency cooling units. Rittal helps not only manufacturing industry and data centres operators in saving electricity, but also supports the generators of renewable energy with innovative enclosure solutions from the "Rittal - the System" modular infrastructure range. This contains a large number of products that allow the establishment of modern energy grids: They include power distribution systems such as Ri4Power, as well as outdoor enclosures, designed to connect private households, equipment for data centres, and much more.
Finally, Rittal is also providing a solution for metering energy consumption. It measures both total energy consumption as well as downstream utilization by individual consumers. These values are then transmitted to a management software application that provides evaluations, and can also intervene automatically to increase energy efficiency. Initially designed for use by data centres, the approach will also be applicable to future industrial manufacturing environments.

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Rittal GmbH & Co. KG

Rittal GmbH & Co. KG, which has its headquarters in Herborn, Germany, is one of the world's leading system suppliers for housing and enclosure technologies, power distribution systems, system climate control and IT infrastructure. Customers from all sectors of industry, from mechanical and plant engineering, as well as from the IT and telecoms market, are making use of system solutions from Rittal.

Its broad product range also includes complete solutions for modular and energy-efficient data centres: from innovative security concepts for data systems (formerly known as Litcos) through to physical data and system security for IT infrastructures (formerly known as Lampertz). The leading software providers Eplan and Mind8 - Rittal subsidiaries - are supplementing the Rittal product portfolio with interdisciplinary engineering solutions.

Founded in 1961, Rittal is now active worldwide with 12 production sites, 63 subsidiaries and 40 agencies. With 9,000 employees worldwide, Rittal is the largest company of the proprietor-run Friedhelm Loh Group of Haiger, Germany. The entire group employs more than 10,500 people and generated revenues of more than € 2.2 billion in 2008. Further information at www.rittal.com and www.friedhelm-loh-group.com.