Climate protection prizes awarded for municipal use of wood in Baden-Württemberg
Published
HolzProKlima initiative honours award winners
Over the last 150 years, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which are responsible for climate change, has risen sharply. Germany has set itself the goal of becoming largely greenhouse gas neutral by 2050. The great importance of municipalities in achieving these climate protection goals and the important role played by the increased and responsible use of wood became clear at the award ceremony for the 2016/2017 HolzProKlima municipal competition in Baden-Württemberg.
The award ceremony honoured cities, municipalities and districts that have made a conscious political decision to contribute to climate protection in their region by increasing the use of wood as a renewable resource. The competition office received a total of 40 applications. Cash and non-cash prizes totalling 20,000 euros were provided by companies in the wood-processing industry.
The winners of the HolzProKlima municipal competition in Baden-Württemberg, together with Forestry Minister Peter Hauk (1st row, 3rd from right) and representatives of the competition jury and sponsors, at the Institute for Lightweight Structures, Conceptual Design and Construction (ILEK) at the University of Stuttgart.
Climate champion was the municipality of Frickingen. Baden-Württemberg's Forestry Minister Peter Hauk (CDU) honoured the winners of the municipal competition in person and thanked the organisers of the state-sponsored competition: "There is a great need for the climate-positive material wood, and the possible uses are becoming increasingly diverse thanks to innovations."
NATURSTROM is expanding its largest local heating project to date in Markt Erlbach, Franconia. In future, the eco-energy supplier will supply more than 130 customers with sustainable and locally generated heat - not only households but also municipal buildings and a large commercial enterprise. On 2,400 m2 Bavaria's largest solar thermal plant is being built for this purpose.
In the current second construction phase, NATURSTROM is connecting more than 70 new heat consumers, including the largest customer, the honey bottler Breitsamer & Ulrich GmbH & Co. KG. The company is providing the land for an energy centre and Bavaria's largest solar thermal plant with an area of 2,400 m2 available.
"The current turbulence on the European energy markets shows that we in Germany absolutely have to make ourselves less dependent on imports of fossil fuels," says NATURSTROM CEO Dr Tim Meyer. "With the heating turnaround towards decentralised renewable energies, we are not only doing the climate a great favour, but also ourselves and our economy. The local heating supply in Markt Erlbach is a great example of how the changeover can succeed."
Since 2019, NATURSTROM has been supplying 40 consumers with ecological heat at long-term stable prices via a wood pellet heating centre. After completion of the second construction phase, the local heating network will be 6.4 kilometres long. In addition to numerous private households and the Breitsamer company, the heat consumers also include smaller businesses and municipal buildings such as the school, the indoor swimming pool and an event hall. "We are pleased that so many and such different players in Markt Erlbach want to be part of the local heat turnaround," says Meyer.
After connecting all consumers, the total heat demand in the network is around 5,350 megawatt hours (MWh) per year; by covering this demand from renewable sources, approx. 1,800 tonnes of CO2 saved. In addition to solar heat, NATURSTROM uses wood pellets from the region as fuel in the existing energy centre, and regional wood in the form of wood chips will also be used in the second energy centre once the second construction phase is completed. "With the raw material supply from the region, we can provide affordable and sustainable energy for our citizens in the long term. Especially for future generations, it is important to act decisively for climate protection," emphasises Markt Erlbach's First Mayor Dr Birgit Kreß.
The two energy centres and the local heating network are designed to be open to new technologies, so that modernisation and expansion to supply new consumers are possible.
The impetus for planning the local heating supply came from a renovation of the main street. The connection to the local heating network will mainly replace old, climate-damaging oil heating systems. Particularly due to the lack of gas supply infrastructure, more than 80 percent of the inhabitants in Markt Erlbach still used heating oil before the start of the first construction phase.
The current share of green electricity should not hide the fact that this federal government is blocking the energy transition at every turn. Take wind energy, for example: the government keeps delaying the additional tenders. Therefore, a massive slump is imminent in the next two years. This means job losses in a key industry of the future and a stagnating development in the share of wind power.
Take solar power, for example: no sooner has the solar power market picked up again after years of lull than the German government wants to massively cut the market premium for many installations. This emerges from the current draft bill for the Energy Collection Act. In doing so, the government would stall the positive development again. The cap of 52 gigawatts for solar power is also to remain in place.
Even if the government only wants to achieve its own targets, which are far too low, it must double the current production of green electricity by 2030. The course must be set for this now. But instead of finally accelerating the expansion of green electricity, the black-red coalition wants to continue to slow down, cap and delay. Not to mention transport and buildings, where the energy transition is not making any progress at all. In this way, the government continues to torpedo the urgently needed climate protection.
PM BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN in the German Bundestag of 2.11.2018
A further 700,000 euros will be available for #moinzukunft cargo bikes from 1 April. Up to 2,000 euros in subsidies are possible for the purchase of a new e-load bike and 500 euros for normal load bikes.
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.
