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POWERING THE FUTURE WITH SMART MANUFACTURING: Lessons from the World’s First DC Factory
Guido Bachmann
Schaltbau GmbH Director Engineering R&D Electronics & Software
Modern manufacturing is under real pressure. Rising energy costs, growing energy demand, and more stringent sustainability requirements are expos- ing the limits of factory infrastructure designed decades ago. Most plants still run on alternating current (AC) systems, a choice that made sense in the last cen- tury. But today, direct current (DC) power is making a comeback as a more efficient, flexible, and sustainable alternative for modern production. The NExT Factory, operated by Schaltbau in Germany, stands as the world’s first industrial facility to be fully powered by a DC microgrid. More than just a showcase, it’s a full-scale production environment designed from the ground up to test and prove what a truly modern factory could look like. After two years of operation,
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