Since the beginning of the summer, the northern hemisphere has been experiencing extreme heat, not only in low and mid-latitude countries, but also in some high-latitude countries/regions such as London, UK and northern Russia. Droughts, forest fires and heat-related illnesses have also become buzzwords, and the persistent heat has reinforced the concern for 'energy saving and carbon reduction'.
As early as September 2020, China clearly put forward the goals of "carbon peaking" by 2030 and "carbon neutral" by 2060. Under the leadership of the dual carbon strategy, China has continued to promote a new round of technological revolution and industrial change, and energy saving and green manufacturing have gradually become one of the key directions for industrial upgrading. As a key tool to promote industrial upgrading in recent years, the laser industry is also closely following the dual carbon strategy objectives for technological innovation, and some laser equipment manufacturers are also actively responding to the national call to start green transformation. How can laser equipment companies implement green manufacturing? What technologies can laser equipment use to reduce carbon emissions? In order to understand these issues, OFweek went into Bystronic, a company that has been laying out green manufacturing for many years and has now been successful, and had an in-depth discussion with Ms. Yan, Vice President of Bystronic, on laser green manufacturing.
OFweek: This year, temperatures have been unusually high since the beginning of summer, with even high latitudes experiencing extreme heat. In this context, the control of carbon emissions is becoming a topic of concern for all sectors of society. China has also been advocating green manufacturing in recent years, how do you think the laser industry should implement green manufacturing?
Ms Yan: Promoting green manufacturing is key to China's efforts to combat climate change and achieve its carbon peak and carbon neutral targets. According to the "14th Five-Year" Industrial Green Development Plan of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, there are six directions to promote green development: high-end industrial structure, low-carbon energy consumption, recycling of resources, clean production process, green product supply, and digital production methods. Laser industry is one of the important pushers of China's industrial upgrading, from the general environment is to promote the entire manufacturing industry structure of high-end, digital production methods of the key to the laser industry itself, to achieve green manufacturing also has some way to go.
The most crucial thing is the decarbonisation of energy consumption. Thermal power is still close to 70% of the domestic power generation mix and is the absolute mainstay. In other words, the electricity consumed by industrial equipment is also, on some level, "burning coal". So for laser equipment, the key to decarbonising energy consumption is how to get more value out of it by consuming less energy. At present, there are already light source manufacturers working on improving the efficiency of electro-optical conversion, increasing the efficiency of the past 30% to 40%, or even 50%, as a way to reduce carbon emissions.
For equipment integrators, the overall energy consumption is essentially fixed for the same working time due to the large number of power-consuming components involved and cannot be saved as directly as with lasers. However, laser equipment is directly linked to the user's output, and if the efficiency and output of processing can be improved through the performance of functional components and the innovation of the application process under the same power and energy consumption configuration, it is also an important direction to achieve the decarbonisation of energy consumption. In other words, producing the same output, creating the same value and consuming less energy.
In addition, for laser processing, auxiliary gases are one of the main consumables, be it oxygen or nitrogen, and when they run out they have to be bought and replenished again, a process that involves various aspects of gas purification, pressurisation and liquefaction, storage and transport. In terms of recycling of resources, the consumption of nitrogen and oxygen also increases carbon emissions to some extent. If the auxiliary gases are replaced by air, the operation of the compressor allows a continuous supply of auxiliary gases directly from the atmosphere, thus recycling the resources.
OFweek: The popularity of laser cutting technology has, to a certain extent, made up for the shortcomings of the traditional processes of the past (plasma cutting, flame cutting, etc.) in terms of high pollution and high consumables, with green features. Laser technology has also been advancing in recent years and processes are constantly being innovated. As one of the major players in high power lasers today, can Bystronic introduce how the latest laser technology can help to reduce carbon emissions?
Ms. Yan: Laser processing has been highly sought after in recent years, rapidly replacing traditional processes, of which cleanliness and environmental protection are very key factors, as can be seen by comparing the diagram of a laser cutting and plasma cutting process site. And an important direction in the Ministry of Industry's planning is the cleanliness of the production process, which laser processing fits right in. At the same time, with the breakthroughs in high power and high brightness laser technology, as well as the continuous progress in the cutting process, the dust generated by laser cutting will be further reduced.
Like the air mentioned earlier, from the point of view of gas consumables that is resource recycling, and from the point of view of the process and the environment of the processing site, the use of air cutting process can also comply with the clean production process. In the past we have only been able to cut carbon steel using oxygen, where the oxygen acts as an ignition aid and the principle is similar to that of flame cutting, so you will also see a lot of smoke and dust when cutting carbon steel with oxygen (although much less than with flame cutting). While air cutting, although partially fuelled by oxygen, is more akin to the principle of nitrogen cutting, relying on the high power laser's own energy to melt the material and then using high air pressure to blow away the melt. As a result, air cutting produces significantly less smoke than oxygen cutting, which will also greatly reduce the workload and power consumption of dust extraction equipment.
In addition, the speed of air cutting is substantially higher than that of oxygen cutting, which in turn fits in with the aforementioned decarbonisation of energy consumption. It can be said that air cutting is an important change in the green philosophy of laser companies, and just this one change can play a huge role in three aspects of energy decarbonisation, resource recycling and production cleanliness. The popularity of 20,000 and 30,000 watts today, on the other hand, allows the air cutting process to cover the vast majority of carbon steel processing needs on the market. It is worth mentioning that Bystronic has once again upgraded and optimised the latest generation of By-Power cutting heads according to the characteristics of air cutting, making them even better matched to air cutting scenarios. Collectively, the maturity of high power laser technology and the improved performance of highly matched cutting heads have allowed laser technology to perform better in reducing carbon emissions.
OFweek: China is in a critical period of transformation and upgrading of its manufacturing industry. What impact will the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality have on China's industrial structure? As a powerful driver for the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, what changes will take place in the laser industry under the guidance of double carbon?
Ms. Yan: China has been promoting industrial upgrading, and the goal of double carbon has undoubtedly put forward a more specific and clear direction for the high-end industrial structure. On the one hand, we are eliminating highly polluting, low value-added industries, and on the other hand, we are increasing support for low-carbon, high value-added industries. For traditional industries with high energy consumption but high added value, or where the lifeblood of the country is at stake, promoting their digital transformation is a top priority.
The Group has been pursuing an intelligent, data-driven and system-integrated product structure, one that clearly differentiates us from other laser integrators in the market. An automated factory has been set up with the aim of providing customers with better smart manufacturing solutions and allowing them to also achieve carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and energy saving related layouts. This high-end route for the industry will reduce the customer's consumption in terms of energy and also increase the efficiency of production, resulting in higher profitability for the customer.
For example, not long ago we gave a customer an intelligent supporting service, in addition to the basic laser processing equipment, but also combined with the customer's site environment for the overall layout, the addition of automatic loading and unloading systems, AGV transport vehicles, etc., can greatly improve the customer's overall efficiency. Including the bending process after cutting, which used to be done by manual operation of the bending machine, we have now introduced a matching bending robot, which can significantly improve efficiency and reduce labour costs. Our goal is to help our customers build world-class factories, where one person, operating a multi-million dollar fleet of equipment, creates tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in value.
Of course, digitisation is indispensable to realise such highly automated factories. The digitalisation of production methods is, in turn, based on the technology of the industrial internet. We will also pass on these ideas to our customers and drive the downstream market in the direction of intelligence. I believe that under the guidance of the goals of Carbon Dafeng and Carbon Neutral, both the laser industry itself and the downstream application industry of lasers will enter the digital and intelligent era at an accelerated pace in the future.
OFweek: After more than ten years of refinement, the quality of your products has been fully recognized by the market. At a time when the concept of green manufacturing is gradually spreading, what specific actions and layouts can your company take in terms of environmental protection and carbon neutrality? What impact will the green manufacturing concept have on the future development pattern of the laser industry?
Ms. Yan: In fact, European companies have been emphasizing energy saving and environmental protection since a long time ago. The Swiss head office will ask each subsidiary and factory to count all the energy consumption data and analyse them, and propose control and improvement plans. Under the guidance of these measures, Bystronic has also done a very meticulous job of controlling the details of green manufacturing.
We used to have several products that sold very well, but because of their high energy consumption, after we absorbed the concept of green manufacturing, we upgraded and optimised these high energy consumption products to improve the energy consumption. We have even eliminated some products outright and redesigned them into new products using environmentally friendly concepts. At the same time, we have also optimised the production process, and some highly polluting processes we have been reducing or even eliminating, so that our products comply with the concept of green manufacturing from the beginning of the production process.
We hope to pass on this concept of green manufacturing so that both production and application-oriented enterprises can actively respond to the national call to achieve low-carbon emission reduction and green production. Bystronic not only pursues its own economic returns, but also hopes to create a green laser ecosphere through the joint efforts of itself and colleagues in the industry, with green protection as the core, so that the whole industrial chain is greener and more environmentally friendly!
