"Cars have no place in cities"
Hermann Knoflacher with Vladimir Balzer and Axel Rahmlow
Hermann Knoflacher wants roads and car parks to be built on. Car-free cities are feasible, says the transport expert. This would allow local authorities to create masses of affordable living space. But will they go for it?
Affordable housing in cities is becoming increasingly hard to find. Many feel pushed to the margins. Politicians want to take countermeasures, but have very different mechanisms depending on the country and the municipality.
Energiedienst receives production approval for hydrogen from green electricity
Domestic industry will be the first customer
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
Grenzach-Wyhlen, December 5, 2019. Hydrogen production in Grenzach-Wyhlen in Baden-Württemberg (not far from Basel) can start. Energiedienst today received approval for the operation of the power-to-gas plant. All technical verifications and official clarifications have now been fulfilled.
In the state-of-the-art plant, Energiedienst produces hydrogen from self-generated green electricity using electrolysis. The electricity comes from the company's own hydroelectric power plant on the same site. The environmentally friendly hydrogen will initially be used in nearby industry. It is also planned to use it in local public transport. A comprehensive concept also envisages that the waste heat generated during electrolysis will be used to heat a new residential area. By linking electricity, mobility and heat supply in this way - keyword: sector coupling - the plant should help to reduce CO2 emissions and support the energy transition.
A year ago, Energiedienst officially inaugurated the power-to-gas plant together with the State Minister of Economics, Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut (CDU).
The plant has an output of one megawatt. In addition, there is 0.3 megawatts from an affiliated research facility of the ZSW (Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research). The state of Baden-Württemberg has funded this as part of a lighthouse project.
At the end of October, Energiedienst also submitted a concept for hydrogen for consideration in the "Reallabore der Energiewende" ideas competition run by the German Federal Ministry of Economics. The Federal Government attaches a key role to hydrogen, especially for the mobility of the future. The funding commitment from Berlin is still pending.
Company information
The Energiedienst Group is a German-Swiss public limited company with a regional and ecological focus. It generates green electricity from hydropower and sells electricity and gas. Its own grid companies supply customers with electricity. Another focus is on intelligently networked products and services for the decentralised renewable and digital energy world of the future, such as photovoltaic systems, heat pumps, electricity storage systems and e-car sharing.
The Energiedienst Group supplies over 270,000 customers with electricity. It employs just under 1,000 people, including around 50 trainees. The group includes Energiedienst Holding AG, Energiedienst AG, ED Netze GmbH, Messerschmid Energiesysteme GmbH, EnAlpin AG in Valais as well as Tritec AG and winsun AG. Energiedienst Holding AG is an associated company of EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (Karlsruhe).
Great joy in Aachen: One of the central urban development projects is awarded special federal funding.
Mayor Sibylle Keupen: "This is a super message for our city!"
The Büchel old town quarter is one of 24 projects nationwide that are now being supported with a total of 75 million euros.
98 cities and municipalities had applied.
A most welcome piece of news reached the city of Aachen this morning (17 March 2021): Federal Minister Horst Seehofer has announced this year's selection of the "National Projects of Urban Development" and announced that the development of the Büchel old town quarter will receive up to 5.5 million euros in funding. Aachen is thus one of four municipalities in NRW to have been awarded the contract. With the amount of funding, the city is in third place nationwide.
Great news from Berlin: The federal government wants to support the development of the Büchel in Aachen's city centre with up to 5.5 million euros. Photo: City of Aachen / Andreas Herrmann
OBin Keupen: "We feel the spirit of optimism!"
"This is a great message for our city," says Mayor Sibylle Keupen in her first reaction. "We have long felt the spirit of optimism around the Büchel in Aachen. The demolition of the multi-storey car park is imminent, the planning workshop was a great success, many groundbreaking political decisions have been made, and more are on the horizon. Above all, many city makers are on board and want to be involved in a very concrete way. They want to participate, to shape, to plan, to build. The fact that this high level of commitment of all those involved here on site has now also triggered such a response at federal level encourages us to continue on the path of 'making a city at Büchel'."
City Planning Director Burgdorff: "Aachen can play in the Bundesliga!"
The municipal councillor for urban development, construction and mobility, Frauke Burgdorff, adds: "I am extremely pleased that Aachen, if it sticks together, can also play in the Bundesliga! Aachen's politicians have united behind the project and have given their backing to the state and federal governments. Thank you for that! But I would also like to express my sincere thanks to those who have done the substantive work here on site, to the municipal project manager Nils Jansen as well as to Christoph Guth and Antje Eickhoff, who have done an excellent job on the part of the municipal development company SEGA."
Making town at the Büchel
A special piece of the city at eye level is to be created at Büchel. It is being developed together with many committed people and institutions. With this approach, it has also precisely met the requirements of the call for proposals. The Federal Ministry's project overview states: "Knowledge, living, meadow" are the keywords under which a mixed-use, urban quarter is to be created in the heart of Aachen's old town in a cooperative and exemplary development process that is wanted and supported by the urban community.
The basis for the development is the exploratory procedure "Stadt machen am Büchel" (Making a city at Büchel), which the city of Aachen launched in spring 2020. City Planning Director Burgdorff sums up: "A multi-storey car park has been blocking the development of the old town for decades. We are tearing it down and building a new urban quarter. The urban community itself is developing the programme, urban design and investment strategy. This project offers a unique opportunity to find answers to the question of how a major wound in the old city can be healed with contemporary building-cultural responses."
The next steps
Following today's basic commitment by the federal government to fund the project, the detailed applications for funding will be drawn up in phase 2. In this ongoing process - and on the basis of upcoming landmark decisions of Aachen's municipal politics - it will now be worked out how the Büchel of the future will take shape with the funding millions.
National urban development projects
National urban development projects are nationally and internationally visible, larger-scale urban development projects with clear impulses for the respective municipality or city, the region and urban development policy in Germany as a whole. They are characterised by a special quality standard with regard to the urban development approach, the building culture aspects and the participation processes, contribute to the realisation of the federal government's building policy objectives and have innovation potential. National urban development projects are projects that generally solve tasks and problems of considerable financial dimension. The focus is on the major challenges currently facing cities and municipalities in Germany (e.g. preservation of existing buildings, conversions, sustainable neighbourhood development).
A total of 24 projects for forward-looking urban development are being funded by the federal government with a total of around 75 million euros. 98 cities and municipalities from all over Germany applied for the funding.
More info Interesting facts about the Büchel can be found on the Internet at www.buechel-aachen.de
From Aprill 2021 the Demolition work on the Büchel multi-storey car park. All the info on this has been presented as part of an online event. The stream is still available on the YouTube channel of the city of Aachen: https://youtu.be/KQqFq6v_edA.
Within the framework of a cooperative planning workshop, three teams of experts developed three exciting designs for the Büchel, each with a focus on the major themes of "knowledge, living, meadow". The final presentation of the planning workshop, which took place digitally in January 2021, is also still available as a stream: https://youtu.be/AWSb5Gx3gKA.
Maximum emission-free - residential areas without cars
Planet Knowledge from 8.4.2019. 05:01 Min.
Available until 8.4.2024
ARD-alpha
A district without cars, in a major German city? In Cologne-Nippes, about 1300 people live in a car-free neighbourhood. The residents of the French Quarter in Tübingen have been gathering experience in a neighbourhood without cars for around 20 years. Does the concept work?
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