Press Release

   MAN Diesel SE wins German business Innovation  Prize

MAN Diesel SE has won the German business Innovation Prize (Innovationspreis der deutschen Wirtschaft) in the Major Enterprises category. The world’s leading supplier of large-scale diesel engines for use in ships and power plants received the prestigious award for creating a new type of gas engine that combines the advantages of the highly efficient Diesel principle with those of the environmentally friendly Otto principle.

The innovative 32/40PGI gas engine from MAN Diesel comprises an Otto engine that uses no spark plugs yet has the high degree of efficiency of a diesel engine and extremely low NOx emissions. The abbreviation PGI stands for “Performance Gas Injection” and describes a completely new, high-energy ignition system. The spark ignition system common to gas engines so far has been replaced by an extremely simple ignition system with high-pressure gas injection.

Chairman of the Executive Board of MAN Diesel SE, Dr. Georg Pachta-Reyhofen, together with Professor Wolfram Lausch, Head of the Marine Medium Speed Business Unit and one of the two inventors of the new engine, accepted the prize on the 19th of January at a gala event held in Frankfurt’s Old Opera House. “We are delighted by this award – and it shows that, even 111 years after Rudolf Diesel developed the diesel engine on MAN's present site in Augsburg and brought it to series production, innovation is still one of the central pillars of our corporate success,” said Dr. Pachta-Reyhofen.

Two managers at MAN Diesel came up with the inspired idea behind the PGI engine. Professor Wolfram Lausch and Dr. Günther Bozung (now retired) considered how it might be possible to overcome the technical limitations that had hitherto restricted the performance of gas-powered engines. “Our PGI system generates ignition power that is up to 100,000 times greater than the most powerful spark plug known, yet the components involved have a much longer service life. The system therefore forms the basis for an engine that combines the high performance density and efficiency of a diesel engine with the advantages of a low-emissions gas engine,” says Wolfram Lausch, describing his invention.

MAN Diesel unveiled the new 32/40PGI gas engine for the first time in the spring of 2006 at the PowerGen Europe trade fair in Cologne. Since then, the innovative concept has enjoyed its first successes on the energy production market. As a pilot customer, the Russian energy supplier Mosoblenergogas, a subsidiary of the Gazprom group, ordered the first two PGI engines in December 2006 for a power plant in Moscow. The Argentinean energy company PAMPA followed in November 2007 with an order for two further engines, which will generate energy in the north of the country using gas as their fuel.

For both customers, the high degree of efficiency, the low maintenance outlay and the environmentally friendly operation of the PGI engine played a key role in their decision to buy. The new PGI principle allows the globally available energy source of natural gas to be converted with high degrees of efficiency into electrical and thermal energy with only minimal emissions. What’s more, the coming into force of emissions regulations set down by agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol, together with ever-tougher local emissions standards will also play a burgeoning role in the operation of stationary power generation plants.

The German business Innovation Prize has been awarded since 1980 by the Wirtschaftsclub Rhein-Main e.V. business club in conjunction with the business magazine “Wirtschaftswoche” for the categories of Major Enterprises, SME companies and start-up firms. The patron is the German Minister for Business and Technology, Dr. Michael Glos. This year, some 221 companies and institutions with more than 230 innovations registered for the award, with just 15 making it through to the final round after careful appraisal.

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