We certify facilities that achieve outstanding results in reducing their environmental burden, energizing environmental action
A Super Eco-Factory & Office certification is given to facilities that achieve outstanding results and take pioneering steps in environmental load reduction as a way to encourage the dissemination of best practices and energize environmental activities.
The Hitachi Group certifies as Eco-Factories & Offices those facilities that have met their target goals for the fiscal year under the GREEN 21 evaluation system. A further assessment is conducted based on six criteria, including energy efficiency, improvements in resource recycling, and VOC emission reduction, to certify those facilities that achieve industry-leading environmental efficiency and environmental load reduction as Super Eco-Factories & Offices. Previously certified facilities are reassessed every year to determine whether they will keep their designations.
Based on their fiscal 2008 performance, nine more facilities were named Super Eco-Factories & Offices, bringing the total to 26 (16 in Japan and 10 outside). We intend to raise the total for the entire Hitachi Group to 30 by fiscal 2010.
We inform our stakeholders about environmental load reduction at Super Eco-Factories & Offices through the Hitachi Web site, as well as through tours for local residents. We also use these locations as venues for Hitachi Group exchanges on leading-edge environmental technologies.
Super Eco-Factory & Office Certification Criteria
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View of the factory
Hitachi Cable’s Takasago Works in Hitachi City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan makes gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium nitride (GaN) single-crystal semiconductor wafers. In the plant, there are many clean rooms, and because air conditioners for clean rooms use three to four times more energy than ordinary air conditioners, reducing their environmental load has long been a challenge. Using inexpensive PLCs (programmable logic controllers), Takasago Works engineers developed their own control system that responds to load changes. They have been promoting energy saving in clean room air conditioning since 2007.
The central air conditioning system at the Takasago Works uses a heat storage tank. Cold water from the cooler part of the tank is used in the air conditioner. After the cold water is warmed by the air in the room, it is returned to the warmer part of the storage tank. Generally, a variable speed pump is controlled to keep the pressure of the cold water constant. However, in spring and fall, when the air conditioning load is light, cold water is returned to the storage tank before it can warm up, causing chiller inefficiencies. To prevent this from happening, the engineers developed a cold water control system that handles load fluctuations and boosts efficiencies. This system*1 controls the variable speed pump to keep the temperature of the returning water around 15˚C. The result has been an 810-tonne, or 30 percent, reduction in annual CO2 emissions over previous levels.
Central air conditioning system
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Hitachi Haramachi Electronics in Soma City, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan handles the post-processing of power semiconductors and manufactures airtight terminals from ceramics.
The pure water used for dicing and cutting in the process of manufacturing high-voltage diodes has conventionally been wasted, but now it is being processed with activated carbon and reused. At the same time, waste heat is used to heat industrial-use water that in turn makes pure water. This system saves the energy equivalent of 76 kiloliters of heavy oil. Moreover, since 2005, final waste has been reduced to less than 0.1 percent. The plant has achieved zero emissions for the seventh consecutive year. In fiscal 2007, Ibaraki Prefecture acknowledged the company, calling it “earth friendly.”
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View of the factory
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Membrane-assisted water decontamination device
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HICEF site: administration
building in foreground,
factory in background
Hitachi Computer Products (Europe) S.A.S. is a manufacturing base on the outskirts of Orléans, France, that makes data storage products. More than 80 percent of the company’s large (500,000 m²) and verdant site is covered with trees.
Over the last three years, the company has been using a management model developed by the EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) on product quality, the environment and safety, to successfully reduce energy consumption, waste, VOC emissions, and water use. At the site, where VOC emissions have been cut to one-seventh of their previous levels, the fiscal 2010 environmental goals have already been met. This achievement shows the united commitment of employees in protecting their rich natural environment through, for example, environment patrols.
The company is also an active participant in the geothermal power generation project launched by the local economic association of Orléans and its environs. The goal is to use subterranean heat from a depth of 1,000 meters to create energy. The company intends to use this geothermal energy to reduce CO2 emissions by 30 percent.
