Maic Verbücheln and Susanne Dähner (eds.), German Institute of Urban Affairs
Special publication "Climate protection in urban and regional planning. Renewable energies and energy efficiency in municipal planning practice", Berlin, February 2016 (pdf, 9 MB)
Maic Verbücheln, Manuela Reinhardt, Thomas Preuß, Prof Dr Arno Bunzel (German Institute of Urban Affairs)
Renewable energies and energy efficiency in municipal planning practice, SPECIAL training materials, Berlin, February 2016 (pdf 3.7 MB)
The Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development and Construction today announced the Federal Urban Greening Award 2022. This year, the focus is on the topic of "Climate adaptation and quality of life".
Federal Minister Klara Geywitz: "Climate change is a stress test for our cities. We need more trees for a better urban climate, we need soils that can absorb heavy rainfall, we need less sealed land also for more biodiversity and against the heating up of residential neighbourhoods. With the Federal Urban Greening Award 2022, we are honouring the pioneering work that is already shaping the necessary transformation of cities today."
The award recognises best practice examples that show how municipalities can use their urban green spaces to positively influence the urban climate and reduce the negative effects of extreme weather conditions. The award also recognises innovative concepts for climate-adapted and vital urban green spaces that have already been tried and tested. The award is looking for open spaces that can be used by the public and that also meet the other requirements for the use of open spaces in cities and municipalities, including as spaces for recreation and social cohesion and as elements of an attractive network of cycle paths and footpaths. Cities and municipalities in Germany can now apply with their projects. Planning offices, citizens, universities, research institutions, initiatives or associations can participate in cooperation with their municipalities.
Subject to the funds available in the 2022 federal budget, the federal prize is endowed with prize money totalling up to 100,000 euros. In addition to exemplary implemented projects, the courage to experiment with promising new approaches is also rewarded.
An independent jury will decide in June 2022 which projects will be awarded prizes and recognition. It is composed of experts from the fields of garden and landscape architecture, climate adaptation, urban development and urban planning, representatives of the municipal umbrella organisations and from the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs. The award ceremony is scheduled to take place in Berlin in September 2022.
The Federal Urban Greening Award is an important building block in the implementation of the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs' White Paper on Urban Greening. It is supported by the German Association of Cities and Towns, the German Association of Towns and Municipalities and the German Association of Districts. The Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR) implements the Federal Urban Greening Award and provides technical support.
BN - Is the roof of my house or company building suitable for a photovoltaic system or a solar thermal system? This question can now be answered quickly and conveniently online with the help of the new solar roof cadastre of the city of Bonn. In a building-specific map display, a coloured marker indicates whether and to what extent a roof is suitable for energy generation by means of solar power. Step by step, further information, for example on the economic efficiency, can be retrieved via a yield calculator.
The suitability of the roofs of all 129,000 buildings in the city for solar energy generation was recalculated using the latest, improved data. For this purpose, elevation grid data was used, which was determined by the district government of Cologne by means of laser scanning in spring 2016. Compared to the previous version from 2010, the new Bonn solar roof cadastre features, among other things, a fourfold higher resolution and a more differentiated designation of the roof areas.
The suitability of the roof surfaces for electricity generation via photovoltaic systems as well as for domestic water heating and, for the first time, also for supporting building heating via solar thermal collectors was calculated. The calculations also took into account the current changes in the framework conditions with regard to feed-in tariffs and self-consumption of generated solar power.
How the application works
In the city map, the installable system size and many additional data such as yields and savings potentials can be displayed for each building. In a newly developed yield calculator, costs and yields can be calculated and compared by entering additional user-specific information such as electricity consumption or household size. In this way, every owner can quickly gain an overview of the suitability of his or her building for the use of solar energy. Detailed instructions are available at www.bonn.de/...solardachkataster.php.
The City of Bonn points out that the information from the solar roof cadastre is an initial non-binding assessment. Essential prerequisites for a decision to build a system, such as the condition of the roof or the static suitability, can only be clarified by suitable specialist companies or qualified consulting organisations. Information on this can be found on the website of the solar roof register.
Bonn roofs have potential
According to the potential analysis of the solar roof cadastre, 6,800,000 square metres in Bonn are suitable for solar power generation. This corresponds to about the size of 950 football fields. Approximately 800,000 megawatt hours of electricity could be generated on this area. This could cover about 50 percent of the total electricity consumption in Bonn. For solar thermal energy, the result of the potential analysis shows 88,461 buildings in Bonn that could be used for this form of energy generation. This corresponds to about 70 percent of the buildings in Bonn.
The flame retardant HBCD, which was mainly used in polystyrene insulation boards, has been banned since March 2016. But trouble looms from the many millions of cubic meters of HBCD-containing insulation material that have already been installed in Germany.
The flame retardant hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) has been largely banned from trade and use in the EU since spring 2016. For a long time, HBCD was the economically most important flame retardant for polystyrene insulation materials - accordingly, there are still transitional rules for insulation materials made of expanded or extruded polystyrene (EPS/XPS).
While the industry in Germany has largely replaced HBCD with allegedly less problematic flame retardants since the end of 2014, homeowners in Germany are now threatened with considerable costs when converting their buildings and removing insulation materials containing HBCD: This is because these will be classified as "hazardous waste" from October 2016 and can only be disposed of at great expense in special waste incineration plants or plants specially approved for this purpose. According to estimates by the Federal Environment Agency, "considerable disposal costs" are to be expected for homeowners.
How can a consumer tell if a polystyrene insulation material contains HBCD?
Since HBCD has already been identified as a substance of very high concern under the REACH Regulation since 2008, the manufacturer and also the distributor must provide information on the use of the substance in all articles. An online form from the Federal Environment Agency can be used to ask the manufacturer, dealer or importer whether HBCD has been used as a flame retardant. In addition, since 2011, the Construction Products Regulation has also required the information to be provided to end users with the declaration of performance for the CE mark. However, for all polystyrene insulation boards used in the past, it must be assumed that they contain HBCD.
In the brochure "Frequently asked questions and answers on hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) - Answers to frequently asked questions".
of the Federal Environment Agency of July 2016 provides further explanations: www.umweltbundesamt.de/...oekologische-kriterien-fuer
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