RENK offer multiple solutions to the climate crisis by making their products, technologies and corporate activities sustainable

RENK Group’s Innovative Path to Climate Neutrality: Bridging Traditional and Renewable Energy

As an innovation leader, RENK Group is making a decisive contribution on the path to climate neutrality. In doing so, we focus on development and responsibility. RENK has technologies at its disposal to make traditional industries more energy efficient and at the same time offers a wide range of products for the field of climate-neutral energy generation and storage through wind power, hydrogen, Power-to-X or CCUS. 

With its product portfolio, RENK is represented in the entire process of compressing or expanding gases or liquids and is therefore technology and fuel agnostic. In addition, RENK focuses on sustainability for its own corporate activities. Therefore, in 2022 the Sustainability Strategy 2025 was developed. RENK’s most important internal goal is to achieve net-zero (Scope 1 and Scope 2) by 2040.

Pioneering Renewable Energy Solutions: RENK’s Focus on Hydrogen, Power-to-X, and Wind Energy

In the field of New Energy RENK focuses i.e. on hydrogen, Power-to-X, CCUS and wind energy. Among other things, RENK is involved with its products in SALCOS (Salzgitter Low CO2 Steelmaking). This is a large project in Germany in which the CO2-neutral production of steel will be tested and the production of green hydrogen will be promoted. 

However, a growing share of decentralized power generation and fluctuating renewable energy sources lead to destabilized utility power grids, which have an impact on power trains connected to the grid. RENK developed load limiting coupling solutions which enable small scale power generation modules riding through system disturbances in order to maintain a stable power grid.

The company is also involved in the Gateways project in New York State, USA, which started in 2022. Here, one of the world’s largest hydrogen production plants is being built, which in the future will generate a daily capacity of 45 metric tons of liquid hydrogen.

Another sector for RENK is wind power generation. Here is a strong trend towards bigger applications with installations bigger than 10 MW. Big wind turbines operate offshore at a height of 250 – 300 meters. Under such extreme conditions, maintenance and repair is nearly impossible. Therefore, reliability and low maintenance operation is key. 

With this size of wind energy turbines, new technologies in terms of Main Rotor Bearings are necessary. However, by increasing the size, roller bearings are not economically any more useful and are, technically, at their limits. A technology switch towards slide bearings becomes necessary. With our Gearboxes and Main Rotor Bearings, RENK is perfectly ready for this technology step-change.

Advancing Energy Efficiency in Traditional Industries: RENK’s Sustainable Gear Units

In the field of traditional industries, our applications contribute to lower energy consumption and emissions. In plastic processing for example, our SUPREX or CAREX extrusion gear units enable significant energy savings. This results in a 2.5 percent increase in energy efficiency. This means a saving of half a million euros per year – an extruder usually runs for 30 years. The savings therefore amount to 16 million euros over the life cycle of such a unit. 

Commitment to Sustainability: RENK’s Strategic Approach to Achieving Climate Neutrality

RENK also takes the responsibility for sustainability seriously for its own corporate activities. In 2022, an ESG team was set up to manage the strategic field of sustainability across the Group. Together, the team developed the Sustainability Strategy 2025, which is based on eight clear goals according to the UN climate goals in the areas of environmental, social and governance (ESG). RENK’s most important goal is to achieve net-zero (Scope 1 and Scope 2) by 2040.

All targets are backed by specific performance indicators and projects to support this achievement. These goals are integrated into the corporate strategy, culture and daily business. In addition, RENK has set up a Human Rights Committee, which focuses on the prevention of human rights violations in its own business area and in the supply chain.

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