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2:40 Min., Published: 5/2014
A new approach to storing surplus wind power is compressed air storage. The energy could be stored in the form of compressed air in underground caverns. Energy reporter Lars Tepel visits researchers at DLR in Stuttgart.
Keywords:
100% EEs, CO2-neutral, DE-News, Energy storage, Renewable, Movies, Movies < 4 Min, Research, Electricity storage
Heating village heating networks with sun and wood is becoming a model for success. In Germany, five such heat supply systems are being launched this year.
While the heating sector is the problem child of the energy transition throughout Germany, numerous villages are showing how the conversion to renewable energies can be mastered in one fell swoop. More and more often, village communities are relying on a combination of sun and wood, with a large solar thermal system taking over the entire heat supply in the summer. While one such network was launched in each of the past two years, the number of German solar bioenergy villages will grow by five to a total of eight by the end of 2018.
Thomas Pauschinger, a member of the management team at the Steinbeis Research Institute Solites in Stuttgart, where he is in charge of the Solnet 4.0 project for the promotion of solar heating networks, sees a clear trend towards solar heating in Germany's villages: "It is obvious that solar thermal energy is becoming a reliable and economical heat generator in more and more energy villages, because such systems are a future-proof investment and enjoy a high level of acceptance among the residents. With current technology, even more is possible than the 20-percent share that is common in Germany's solar villages today, says Pauschinger: "We expect that in the future solar thermal will not only cover the summer demand of such heating networks, but will also achieve higher solar shares through larger storage tanks."
New to the club are:
Solar energy village Liggeringen, district of the town of Radolfzell, Baden-Württemberg
Operator: Stadtwerke Radolfzell GmbH
Commissioning: 2018
House connections: 90 (first construction phase)
Network length: 5 km
Collector area: 1,100 m² (first construction phase)
Collector type: High-temperature flat-plate collectors
Expected annual yield: 470 MWh/a
Solar coverage: 20 %
Solar energy village Randegg, district of the municipality of Gottmadingen, Baden-Württemberg
Operator: Solarcomplex AG
Commissioning of heating network: 2009
Commissioning solar thermal: 2018
House connections:150
Network length: 6.6 km
Collector area: 2,400 m2
Collector type: CPC vacuum tube collectors
Expected annual yield: 1100 MWh/a
Solar coverage: 20 %
Solar energy village Mengsberg, district of the town of Neustadt, Hesse
Operator: Bioenergiegenossenschaft Mengsberg BEGM eG
Commissioning: 2018
House connections: 150
Network length: 9 km
Collector area: 3,000 m2
Collector type: High-temperature flat-plate collectors
Expected annual yield: 900 MWh/a
Solar coverage: 17 %
Solar Energy Village Breklum, Schleswig-HolsteinOperator: BürgerGemeindeWerke Breklum e.G.
Commissioning: 2018
House connections: 42 (first construction phase)
Network length: 3.8 km
Collector area: 652 m2 (first expansion stage)
Collector type: CPC vacuum tube collectors
Expected annual yield: 289 MWh/a (first construction phase)
Solar coverage: 8 %
Solar energy village Ellern, district of the municipality of Rheinböllen, Rhineland-Palatinate
Commissioning: 2018
House connections: 105
Network length: 5.3 km
Collector area: 1,245 m2
Collector type: CPC vacuum tube collectors
Expected annual yield: 555 MWh/a
Solar coverage: 15 %
Further information on the use of large solar thermal systems in villages, neighbourhoods and cities can be found on the website www.solare-waermenetze.de. The Steinbeis Research Institute Solites offers initial consultations for interested municipalities.
The Solnet 4.0 project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and companies in the solar thermal industry. Project partners are the AGFW - Effizienzverband für Wärme, Kälte, KWK, the Steinbeis Research Institute Solites, Bröer & Witt GbR and the Hamburg Institute.
Keywords:
News Blog Baden-Württemberg, News Blog Hesse, News Blog RLP, News Blog Schleswig-Holstein
"Why do the same dreary apartment blocks have to be built everywhere?" asks F.A.Z. economics writer Nadine Oberhuber in Your post from 26.04.2017. She thinks "unambitious" is still the most harmless word of the viewers for the block architecture". As the main cause she quotes her F.A.Z. colleague and architecture critic Niklas Maak who observes a "radical economization of building", similar to the Bundesstiftung Baukultur.
Even the sustainable settlements cannot escape this pressure for returns and are becoming increasingly unimaginative, as I have unfortunately noticed in my observations over the last 20 years. "It's not pretty", as Gerhard Matzig puts it in his Contribution from 16.4. using the example of Munich's housing construction.
The forest - what an achievement!
Storms, drought and insect infestations have caused a great deal of damage to Germany's forests over the past three years. The "International Day of Forests" on 21 March is a good time to become aware of the many services provided by the forest.
"Rebuilding Forests - A Pathway to Recreation and Well-Being".is the motto of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for this year's "International Day of Forests". The Food and Agriculture Organization is thus drawing attention to two things:
- There is a need for action in reforestation. It is not for nothing that this day was also chosen as the starting point of the UN Decade for the Restoration of Ecosystems (2021-2030). The necessary measures vary from region to region. In Germany, storm damage, drought and beetle infestations have recently led to record tree deaths. In some areas, entire forests are drought-stricken. According to the latest forest condition report, only 20 percent of forest trees still have a healthy crown. But reconstruction is in full swing. The Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), is supporting reforestation and sustainable forest management with comprehensive financial aid. 277,000 hectares will be reforested over the next few years. Important projects on the broad range of forest issues are supported by the Support programme for renewable raw materials of the BMEL and with the Forest Climate Fund which the BMEL is supporting together with the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU).
- With eight key messages the FAO shows how human well-being is closely linked to the condition of forests - and not just through climate change.
For the forest provides us with a cornucopia of Ecosystem services:
- Living and working space forest: This does not only concern indigenous peoples who live in or with the forest and who are directly affected by the destruction of the forests. Even in an industrialised country like Germany, people live from the forest and its products: More than one million people are employed in the forest and timber economic cluster in this country.
- Recreational forest: Germany is a forest country with a forest area share of 32 percent. Germans are traditionally said to have a close relationship with the forest. Statistically, this is expressed in over two billion visits to the forest each year. More than two thirds of Germans regularly visit the forest. On average, each visitor spends at least 20 minutes in the "green lungs". Recreation is the number one reason for visiting the forest.
- Climate protector forest: With climate change, we are reminded of the importance of the carbon storage capacity in the biomass of forests. Through photosynthesis, trees remove the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. In this way, forests counteract climate change. Over 4.5 billion tons of CO2 are bound in the forest. Per hectare, this adds up to the equivalent of 114 tonnes of carbon in our domestic forests.
- Biodiversity: More than 10,000 animal and plant species live in Germany's forests, making them a hotspot of biological diversity. In our forests there are almost 200 species of trees and shrubs, more than 1,000 herbaceous plant species, almost 700 different mosses and more than 1,000 different species of lichens as well as uncounted species of fungi. And from red deer to the dwarf shrew, 140 different vertebrate species live in Germany's forests.
- Many other ecosystem services of the forest, such as oxygen production, air cooling and air filtration, usually receive too little attention. Yet forests, water, soil and atmosphere are inextricably linked. The forest body forms the link between the elements: For example, forests have a considerable influence on the atmospheric as well as the soil water cycle with their evaporation rate. They retain surface water with their rough structure and, together with their gigantic root system, provide formidable protection against erosion. In mountain forests, this network even forms the most important avalanche protection. And on top of that, forests are soil builders - at one centimetre in 100 years, it may seem slow to us. On a geological scale, however, it is rapid.
An overview of the Ecosystem services offered by the infographic.
Keywords:
DE-News, Wood construction, Climate protection, Environmental policy, Life cycle assessment
