Addressing Climate Change

Promoting Decarbonization with Products and Solutions

Reducing Energy Consumption by Helping Customers Transform Their Processes

Textile Printer Reducing Electricity Usage through On-demand Production

UV Inkjet Digital Printing Machine That Reduces Power Consumption by Realizing Automatic Duplex Printing without Drying Time

Contributing to Energy Conservation in the Label Printing Process

Konica Minolta's label printers offer a printing process that employs electrophotographic technology, providing the same high-definition and stable print quality as offset printing.
In traditional offset printing, each color of UV ink often requires a dedicated plate and a high-power consumption UV lamp to cure the UV ink, which has become standard practice. Konica Minolta employs electrophotographic technology to print color images in a single pass, making it unnecessary to cure and color match each color of UV ink.
At the same time, since no plates are required, it helps reduce the energy used in manufacturing and contributes to effective resource use.

Label Printer
AccurioLabel 400

Using Imaging Technology to Prevent Leaks of GHGs

Gas monitoring solutions apply lens design technology and imaging processing technology, which are Konica Minolta’s core technologies, to provide a system that enables anyone to intuitively understand and visualize where and how much hydrocarbon gas, which contributes to global warming, is leaking.
This encourages constant monitoring for unusual events in a way that does not require manual effort. It also allows for rapid, appropriate maintenance that does not depend on the maintenance staff’s skill level. Both of these will contribute to the customer’s safety and peace of mind. In addition, this solution helps to curb the impact that the leak of gases with a high global warming effect has on climate change.

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Energy Conservation in MFPs and Digital Printers

Reduction of Power Consumption During Product Use

Konica Minolta is working on the development of low-temperature fixing toner and efficient fixing systems to help save power. The bizhub C360i series released in 2019 offers standard power consumption (TEC value) for one week that is approximately 20% to 26% less than the previous model. By reducing the TEC value, CO₂ emissions are also greatly reduced.

Simitri V Toner Fixable at a Low Temperature

In MFPs, heat is needed to fix toner to paper, and the power used for that purpose accounts for more than 60% of total power consumption. Konica Minolta has been conducting research and development into toners that can be fixed at lower temperatures, and has developed Simitri V Toner, a proprietary polymerized toner. The company successfully reduced the fixing temperature by about 15 degrees Celsius compared to a previous MFP model (C368). This, combined with a new fixing device, is helping to reduce MFP power consumption. Moreover, Simitri V Toner requires approximately 25% less water to manufacture compared to a previous polymerized toner.

Pad Pressure Fixing System Reduces Power Consumption for Printing

In order to start printing from an MFP, the fixing rollers have to be heated to a certain temperature. Konica Minolta has adopted a pad pressure fixing system for its latest i-Series MFPs in order to efficiently utilize Simitri V Toner, the company's new low-temperature fixing toner. With this new fixing system, the belt and rollers have been reduced in diameter and insulated, thereby substantially cutting the power needed for heating the fixing device during MFP operation.

• Relevant link: Technology Report 2020 (Vol.17)

LED Light Source Reduces Power Consumption During Scanning

Konica Minolta uses LED, which has greater power-saving performance than fluorescent lamps, as the light source for scanners in its MFPs. This has also improved scanning speeds, since LED lights increase the brightness of manuscript exposure.

“Power Save” Feature Reduces Power Consumption When Product Not in Use

Konica Minolta equips its MFPs with a “power save” feature that puts the machine into an energy-saving state, such as automatically turning off the control panel display when the machine has not been used for a certain amount of time. This does not hinder everyday work, since the machine automatically returns to normal mode during power save when it receives a fax or a print signal from a PC.

Proximity Sensor That Can Save Electricity Without Lowering Operational Efficiency

Konica Minolta equips its MFPs with a proximity sensor that automatically returns the machine to normal mode from sleep mode just by bringing a finger close to the control panel. This allows energy savings without lowering operational efficiency, as no time needs to be spent pressing buttons to bring the machine out of sleep mode.

Energy-saving Designs That Power Only the Areas Needed

Konica Minolta minimizes power consumption through energy-saving designs that enable power supply only to areas needed for each function—for example, not starting up the printer control panel when printing from sleep mode or not turning on the toner fixing heater when using the scanner or fax..

“Print Preview” to Reduce Misprints

Misprints can be prevented, as it is possible to preview the finished document on the machine’s LCD screen before printing. This saves paper and also reduces wasteful power consumption.

Preview screen

Weekly Timer with a Learning Function

A weekly timer that automatically switches between normal mode and power-saving mode at pre-set times enables efficient electricity savings according to office use, such as at lunchtime, at night, and days off. The machines are also equipped with a learning function that automatically makes corrections when there is a difference between timer settings and actual usage, based on usage data for a four-week period. This enables operational management with greater energy-savings effects.

Eco Dashboard Increases Users’ Environmental Awareness

Graphs showing environmental contribution are displayed to increase users’ environmental awareness. Reductions for different indicators, such as power consumption and use of toner and paper are displayed on the control panel and can be checked by department and user.

* The above feature is not available on all models.

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Planetarium Projector Contributes to Energy Conservation

Planetarium Projector Reduces Energy Consumption by Using LED Light Sources