Clarification on the handling of insulation waste containing HBCD
Published
Rhineland-Palatinate advises insulation with renewables
In recent weeks, there has been much discussion about the disposal of old EPS-based insulation boards containing the flame retardant HBCD. The new Waste Catalogue Ordinance requires separate disposal. This goes beyond the corresponding EU regulation, which only requires HBCD to be removed from the material cycle. This would also be possible, as has been the case up to now, by incineration at high temperatures together with other waste. The obligation to provide special treatment resulted in bottlenecks at the landfills, which Federal states now react with special regulationswhich clarify how to proceed with the waste. Current waste from construction sites is not affected, and new ETICS based on EPS must no longer contain HBCD anyway.
Neues Berlin and Berliner Stadtwerke expand cooperation
Photo: Berliner Stadtwerke/Mathias_Voelzke
Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft Neues Berlin and Berliner Stadtwerke have agreed on another joint tenant power project. Six solar power systems with an output of around 500 kilowatts are being built in the Mühlengrund housing estate in Hohenschönhausen. Tenants of more than 1,100 apartments will soon be able to benefit from green electricity from their own roofs.
The solar plants, which together cover 4,000 m², are being erected on a total of 23 six-storey buildings between Falkenberger Chaussee, Rüdickenstraße and Am Breiten Luch, near the Hohenschönhausen S-Bahn station. They will enable around 420,000 kilowatt hours of green electricity to be harvested per year and around 235 tonnes of the greenhouse gas CO2 save.
"We are very pleased that Neues Berlin has already started the third project with us, which is also quite large by Berlin standards," says Dr. Kerstin Busch, Managing Director of Berliner Stadtwerke, who points out that there is further potential for expansion in the Mühlengrund residential complex. "Although we are calling for improvements in the current EEG draft - for example, with regard to the obligation to tender or the supply of tenant electricity to neighbouring buildings - we see that tenant electricity can currently still succeed under certain conditions and in close communication with the residents and the cooperative, even under difficult conditions."
"Together with Berliner Stadtwerke GmbH, we have implemented environmentally friendly supply projects based on renewable energies on our roofs in a very short time and without much effort. We are looking forward to further projects like the one in Mühlengrund to give even more tenants the opportunity to benefit from tenant electricity. During the cooperation, it quickly became apparent that both sides are pursuing the goal of making an ecological and social contribution to our city with the greatest interest," says Thomas Fleck, member of the board at Neues Berlin.
In 2019, Berliner Stadtwerke and the housing cooperative Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft Neues Berlin have already successfully implemented a tenant electricity project in the residential complex Malchow floodplain in Hohenschönhausen. Since then, around 640 households have been able to obtain cheap green electricity from their own roofs. To this end, a total of five solar power systems with a total capacity of 224 kilowatts were installed on four buildings belonging to the cooperative. This year, Berliner Stadtwerke added an existing solar power system on the Neues Berlin building Degnerbogen converted to an intelligent tenant power system - a smart model for owners of PV systems that will fall out of the EEG subsidy in the future.
For Berliner Stadtwerke, the implementation of local green electricity projects is an important milestone in enabling a climate-friendly and affordable supply for all residents. To this end, solar power systems are being installed in residential areas and on public buildings, among other things, in order to generate clean electricity where it can be consumed. In addition to this local system expansion, Berliner Stadtwerke offers a range of solar energy services with its berlinStrom tariff municipal green electricity throughout the city. Today, Berlin's only public energy supplier counts more than 19,000 green electricity households among its environmentally conscious customer base.
In a motion, Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen has called for a stronger focus on building with wood and the use of wood products as insulating materials. There should also be a KfW standard that focuses on building with renewable building materials.
The parliamentary group proposes a model programme for ecological building materials with a volume of 20 million euros. In the KfW Bankengruppe's programmes for new construction and refurbishment, the use of carbon-storing building materials based on renewable raw materials should be given greater support, for example in the form of a KfW Bankengruppe "Efficient House Nature+" standard.
Since 2012, the DGNB certification system has been a tool for municipalities that helps them to optimise neighbourhoods in terms of sustainability and to document this through an award. For this system, the DGNB has now specifically further developed the criteria catalogue and significantly reduced the scope through adjustments. According to the DGNB in its press release, this would reduce the effort and costs for building owners "without compromising on quality". New in the updated system version are topics such as light pollution, smart infrastructure, governance, resilience and adaptability.
The revision of the criteria that has now taken place relates to the use profiles for urban districts and commercial districts. The restructuring and the significant reduction in scope from 46 to 30 criteria are the result of a targeted process in which a large number of experts from the DGNB network were involved.
The innovations in detail
In terms of content, numerous adjustments were made. For example, the criterion "social and functional mix" - a core issue of sustainable neighbourhood development - was given a stronger weighting. On the other hand, some topics that previously had only a minimal influence on the overall assessment were dropped. These include, for example, the criteria "art in construction" or "building site/construction process". Numerous other criteria were combined with related topics.
Four criteria were newly integrated or fundamentally revised. The criterion "Emissions / Immissions", which was previously called "Noise and Sound Protection", was expanded to include the topics of air quality and light pollution. The criterion "governance" aims to create structures in the planning stage that will endure after the realisation of the neighbourhood. The entirely new criterion of "resilience and adaptability" aims to promote neighbourhood development that implies the highest possible flexibility and resilience to possible disruptive events. The "Smart Infrastructure" criterion has been greatly expanded in its approach. This includes, among other things, the question of the extent to which digitalisation is fundamentally integrated into neighbourhood planning and what infrastructural prerequisites there are for this - in the buildings and the open spaces alike. This criterion, which takes into account the topic of "smart cities", was deliberately formulated in an open manner, as there is currently a great deal of technological movement in this area.
In order to ensure the international applicability of the DGNB system for neighbourhoods, the content of some criteria was expanded. This applies, for example, to the criterion "environmental risks", in which internationally relevant risks such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or tsunamis were added in addition to the environmental hazards that frequently occur in Germany, such as storms or floods.
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Since 2012, the DGNB certification system has been a tool for municipalities that helps them to optimise neighbourhoods in terms of sustainability and to document this through an award. For this system, the DGNB has now specifically further developed the criteria catalogue and significantly reduced the scope through adjustments. According to the DGNB in its press release, this would reduce the effort and costs for building owners "without compromising on quality". New in the updated system version are topics such as light pollution, smart infrastructure, governance, resilience and adaptability.
