Industriepark Höchst

With its technically advanced infrastructure carefully tailored to the needs of target industries, the industrial park provides an ideal environment for the 90-plus companies that call it home. What’s more, Industriepark Höchst’s location in the heart of the Rhine-Main Region and excellent access to transportation represent valuable locational advantages that make Industriepark Höchst even more attractive. Another benefit: close ties to the many colleges, universities and research institutions in the region.

Tenants of the 4.6 square kilometer park, whose origins date back to 1863, range from multinational corporations to niche service providers to tiny start-ups and employ around 22,000 people. Industriepark Höchst is a vibrant, forward-looking location, and the investment figures show it. Tenants invested around EUR 327 million in the park in 2018. Total investment since 2000 has topped EUR 7.7 billion. In fact, investment has stayed remarkably constant at EUR 300-400 million a year over the past nearly 20 years.

Infraserv Höchst, the operator of Industriepark Höchst, has been a major driver of the site’s successful evolution. Established in 1997, the company maintains a broad portfolio of services and effectively supports park tenants so they can focus entirely on their core business. It supplies tenants with electricity and steam as well as technical gases, eight different grades of water and many different raw materials, all while meeting high efficiency standards. Infraserv Höchst disposes of waste and wastewater at its treatment and disposal facilities in an environmentally responsible fashion. Waste heat from these facilities is captured and redirected into the park’s supply systems in order to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Other services in the Infraserv Höchst portfolio include health, safety, environment, logistics and facility management.

Infraserv Höchst is constantly upgrading Industriepark Höchst to make the site more competitive on its tenants’ behalf. Among other things, the industrial park operator is investing in the modernization of its gas turbine plant and the construction of two additional power plant units that will generate steam from waste heat and natural gas. This project is associated with a complete coal phase-out – and will eliminate around a million metric tons of CO2 emissions a year. Another investment in clean energy technology: Industriepark Höchst will be hosting a fueling station for fuel cell-powered locomotives that the regional public transit operator is buying. The world’s largest fleet of these high-tech trains will be fueled at Industriepark Höchst, where ample hydrogen is generated as a byproduct of chemical production. Infraserv Höchst has been involved in pioneering projects to develop hydrogen and fuel cell technology for over ten years.

Digitalization is obviously a top priority for Infraserv Höchst as well. Infraserv Höchst Prozesstechnik, a subsidiary established in 2018, uses more than just tablet and smartphone apps for generating paperless maintenance documentation – it also employs augmented reality glasses. Equipped with these head-mounted displays, maintenance workers have their hands free to perform other tasks, can use voice commands to document the condition of equipment, and they can communicate directly with customers in real time and get them involved in assessing a machine’s condition. Industry 4.0 is already a part of day-to-day operations at Infraserv Höchst.

Industriepark Höchst is rich with opportunities and prospects. Provadis, an Infraserv subsidiary and the industry’s developer of skilled experts, trains young people in over 40 different vocational programs for tenant companies and many other customers. Around 500 young men and women started training programs at Provadis in 2019. Provadis even has its own higher-learning institution that offers executive and cooperative college degree programs. Clearly, Industriepark Höchst is fully prepared for demographic change.