ThyssenKrupp has set itself new innovation targets. Renewable energies, Industry 4.0, sustainable mobility and resource-conserving products are high on the innovation agenda. Chief Technology Officer Reinhold Achatz: “We are working hard to ensure that in the future ThyssenKrupp stands for sustainable products produced in a sustainable way.”
ThyssenKrupp wants to play an important role in the transition to renewable energies. ThyssenKrupp’s aim is to help manage the volatility of renewables, among other things through innovative storage technologies. The Group is currently working to advance redox flow batteries, an existing technology in which electricity is stored as chemical energy in two large tanks, to build redox flow batteries with a power output of 20MW. The Group is also developing an electrolysis system whose capital costs will probably be 3.5–5 times lower than competing solutions with an efficiency level of 80%.
Photo courtesy of ThyssenKrupp
In research and development, ThyssenKrupp is banking on its combined strength as a diversified industrial group, what it calls cross-industry innovation, as exemplified by the MULTI and Carbon2Chem projects. The Carbon2Chem project is a collaborative project involving the Steel Europe business area, chemical plant engineers from the Industrial Solutions business area, and the TechCenter Control Technology. The aim of the roughly 15-year project is to convert steel mill gases into valuable base chemicals such as ammonia and methanol. MULTI is the world’s first multi-cab, cableless elevator system.