Local authorities promote natural fibre insulation materials
Published
Some cities subsidise the use of certified insulation materials with a bonus to support resource conservation, carbon storage and particularly environmentally friendly products. This also includes many insulation materials made from renewable raw materials.
In the Overview the cities are listed that grant an extra subsidy for certified natural insulation materials:
Düsseldorf
10 - 25 EUR/m²
Hamburg
10 EUR/m²
Hanover
5 EUR/m²
Munster
10 EUR/m²
Munich
0,30 EUR/kg
The overview does not claim to be complete; no funding entitlement can be derived from it.
Kaiserslautern (energate) - The Energy Agency Rhineland-Palatinate and the consulting firm BET Aachen have published a study on the topic of "Attractive business models with PV systems".
Prinz-Eugen-Park wooden housing estate in Munich. Photo: Johann Hartl
There is a shortage of housing in Europe's conurbations; Germany alone lacks about 1.5 million residential units (WE). For this reason, the federal government has decided to build 400,000 WE annually. At the same time, the federal government's climate protection plan foresees a significant decrease in building emissions from 209 million to 67 million tonnes of CO2-equivalents by 2030, which would correspond to an emission reduction of 68 % since 1990. Other European countries have also committed to implementing far-reaching climate protection targets. Against this background, many of those involved in construction are increasingly relying on wood as a renewable building material, in addition to energy-efficient construction and the use of renewable energies.
The Construction cost study on large timber housing estates and quarters in Europe (short Wooden housing study), financed from funds of the funding programme FUTURE CONSTRUCTION of the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs (BMWSB) and based at the Rottenburg University of Applied Sciences (HFR), systematically researches and records those projects in timber and timber hybrid construction that have already been realised or are currently in planning. In the process, the construction costs of the buildings are analysed as well as the motives of the investors and clients to build with wood. Another goal is to show how timber construction methods can be further established in the segment of housing estates and urban districts in order to expand the range of large-volume housing projects with an environmentally and climate-friendly variant.
Energiedienst's power-to-gas plant in Grenzach-Wyhlen is allowed to produce emission-free hydrogen from green electricity as of today. Photo: energiedienst.de
At a hydroelectric power plant operated by the energy company Energiedienst in Grenzach-Wylen, the production of green hydrogen has been running successfully for four months. The project produces 500 kilograms of hydrogen per day.
Hydrogen from hydropower: successful start for one of the largest power-to-gas plants in Germany to date. This is reported by the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW). The megawatt plant has been in operation for four months in April 2020 and is functioning reliably. A research electrolyser connected to it is also running successfully. The ZSW is coordinating the project. The operator of the commercial plant is the energy supplier Energiedienst AG.
The power-to-gas plant with an electrical connected load of one megawatt produces renewable hydrogen using electricity from the Rhine hydroelectric power plant in Wyhlen. Since it is not necessary to use the public electricity grid, grid fees and the EEG surcharge do not apply. In addition, high full load hours can be achieved because the hydropower is available practically around the clock. This further improves the economic efficiency and enables extensive operating experience to be gained quickly.
He said the plant has been running regularly since early December 2019 and has had 1,850 hours of operation since then. Previously, it was in trial operation. The monitoring system set up by the ZSW, which measures all essential components and subsystems, functions perfectly. The plant operates fully automatically in 24-hour operation both at full load and in various partial load conditions.
Efficiency of 66 percent
The ZSW monitors operation with the help of remote data transmission to Stuttgart and automated data evaluation. The overall efficiency of electricity to high-purity hydrogen compressed to 300 bar is currently up to 66 percent in relation to the calorific value of the gas. In addition, the researchers are investigating ageing effects and deriving potential improvements from the data.
So far, the plant has filled 62 trailers with hydrogen suitable for fuel cells. Each of these transportable containers holds around 300 kilograms. The plant can produce up to 500 kilograms of hydrogen per day. This is enough for an average daily mileage of more than 1,000 fuel cell cars.
Improved electrolysis
The research project docked to the commercial plant is also progressing positively. In a research plant, the scientists are testing improved electrolysis blocks with a maximum output of 300 kilowatts in parallel operation with the commercial plant. They should further reduce the price of hydrogen. But companies could also test and optimize components there.
Last year, the ZSW and its research partners already achieved an initial success during the test operation of the plant: with new electrode coatings, the researchers achieved 20 percent more power density compared to the electrolysis blocks of the industrial plant section. This means that less volume and material are required for the same output.
Goal: Halve hydrogen price
Since the investment costs are also based on the construction volume and the electrolysis units account for the largest share of costs in the conversion of renewable electricity at around 40 percent, progress in this area is automatically reflected in the price of hydrogen. For manufacturers of electrolysis plants, development is therefore an important factor for further cost reduction. The long-term goal of the ZSW researchers and Energiedienst engineers is to roughly halve the current production costs of electricity-based hydrogen.
The state of Baden-Württemberg supports the Lighthouse project with a total of 4.5 million euros. In 2019, a project based on this was selected by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology as one of the winners of the first round of the "Reallabore der Energiewende" ideas competition. A total of twelve partners are on board for this major project.
Project partners of the EU project NETfficient take stock and publish manual in January 2019
Over the past four years, the power grid on the North Sea island of Borkum has served as a real laboratory for testing elements of a future-proof energy system. Central to this was the development of energy storage systems and their networked operation within a virtual power plant. The measures were funded by the EU project NETfficient from January 2015 to December 2018. 13 partners from 7 EU member states worked together.
Forty private houses, five large buildings, part of the Borkum street lighting and the temperature control of the Borkum Seawater Aquarium were connected to PV and energy storage systems, which range from lithium-ion batteries, supercapacitors and recycled old batteries from electric vehicles to hydrogen storage and low-temperature water storage. A 1 MW / 500 kWh large-scale storage system consisting of lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors was also used in the medium-voltage grid. All these storages and generators were connected to the so-called Energy Management Platform (a Distributed Energy Management System or DERMS), which is the central element of NETfficient. The Energy Management Platform allows the automated operation of the generators and storages and optimizes the energy consumption on the one hand and allows the provision of system services on the other hand.
The various visits to the island of Borkum were enriching for all project partners, who gained insights into life and living there, as well as into the interests and concerns of the island's inhabitants. They found an island community that has an above-average understanding of the challenges of the energy transition and climate change and that has its sights firmly set on the goal of becoming climate-neutral and emission-free by 2030.
On a technical level, this was an extremely complex project that required close coordination between the individual partners, most of whom did not even know each other before the project began. Participation in the project allowed partners from academia and research, industry and SMEs to deepen and exchange their knowledge and skills in a wide range of areas such as energy storage, power electronics, network technology, energy conversion and software. Several partners were able to increase the technological maturity of their products and improve their offer to customers within the framework of the project. For some, the project collaboration led to new orders or projects. Project coordinator Ayesa Advanced Technologies SA (Spain) comments:
"NETfficient was a key project for Ayesa's innovation strategy. It allowed the company to develop new energy solutions with outstanding market potential and established strong collaborations with European partners in the energy and storage value chains. We thank all NETfficient partners for their intensive work on this ambitious project and great community spirit in working towards the project goals."
The most important findings from the project are now being summarized in a handbook, which will be published in January. It can be pre-ordered by emailing netfficient.project@gmail.com.
Further information on the project can also be found at www.netfficient-project.eu. In NETfficient, the Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum took over the administrative and financial project management, the dissemination and exploitation of the project results, the communication and supports the market introduction.
NETfficient is coordinated by Ayesa Advanced Technologies S.A. in cooperation with 12 partners: Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia; Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of the University of Cagliari; Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE; PowerTech Systems; Schneider Electric GmbH; Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum; Swerea IVF (from ; Vandenborre Energy Systems NV; Williams Advanced Engineering; Wirtschaftsbetriebe der Stadt Borkum GmbH; Zigor Research&Development; and follower-partner Ayuntamiento de Santander City Council's Information and Communications Department. The project is co-funded by the EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Project No. 646463.
We use cookies to optimize our website and services.
Functional
Always active
Technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a particular service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that have not been requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access, which is solely for statistical purposes.Technical storage or access used solely for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary consent from your Internet service provider, or additional records from third parties, information stored or accessed for this purpose cannot generally be used alone to identify you.
Marketing
Technical storage or access is necessary to create user profiles, to send advertising or to track the user on a website or across multiple websites for similar marketing purposes.
