21 February 2019. the municipality of Lamspringe in Lower Saxony is the 100th drawing municipality.
ROBIN WOOD has scrutinized the green electricity offers of 1,200 providers and publishes the results today in the "ROBIN WOOD Eco-Electricity Report 2020.". The environmental organization rates eight offers as recommendable. The current research report was realized with the support of the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany.
The beginning of the year is a good opportunity to switch to a green electricity provider and thus contribute to climate protection. But watch out! Not all offers that are advertised as green and eco actually have a benefit for the climate and the environment. The ROBIN WOOD Eco-Electricity Report helps consumers to orient themselves in the confusing market and to make an informed decision.
"Anyone who believes that they are supporting the energy transition by buying so-called green electricity is mistaken. Many offers come from companies that operate coal and nuclear power plants themselves or sell their electricity. It is therefore all the more important to take a close look at who the green electricity comes from," emphasizes Ronja Heise, ROBIN WOOD energy consultant.
For the Report 2020, ROBIN WOOD conducted extensive research on the websites of the providers in the second half of 2019 as well as a survey by means of a questionnaire. The results are therefore mainly based on information provided by the electricity suppliers.
ROBIN WOOD has checked according to the following criteria: The providers sell electricity exclusively from renewable energy sources; they are independent - in terms of ownership and also in their electricity purchasing - from the coal and nuclear industries, and they additionally promote the energy transition by purchasing electricity from new plants or through fixed investment programs. Eight nationwide providers succeed in this - namely: Bürgerwerke - Energie in Gemeinschaft, EWS - Elektrizitätswerke Schönau, Greenpeace Energy, Grün.Power, Mann Strom, Naturstrom, Ökostrom Plus and Polarstern.
With its green electricity criteria, the ROBIN WOOD report goes further than the best-known green electricity labels, in which economic ties play only a subordinate role in the assessment.
For example, a tariff from the provider NaturEnergiePlus Deutschland has been awarded the "Green Electricity" label, even though the provider is wholly owned by the energy company EnBW. EnBW operates both nuclear and coal-fired power plants. The situation is similar at Energiewerke Waldbröl, which carries the "OK Power" label. The company is 51 percent owned by Aachener Stadtwerke (STAWAG), which has stakes in coal-fired power plants.
"It is an outrage when the money of green electricity customers ends up directly or indirectly with coal and nuclear companies. More transparency and access to the relevant data is needed here. The ROBIN WOOD Eco-Electricity Report 2020 succeeds in bringing light into the darkness", says Maximilian Voigt from the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany.
The Green Electricity Report 2020 can be found free of charge online at www.robinwood.de/oekostromreport-2020.
It contains detailed descriptions of the recommended providers as well as a search function that can be used to call up the ratings of all the nationwide and regional providers examined. These results are supplemented by background information on the green electricity market and on switching electricity providers.
A printed version can be ordered from the ROBIN WOOD office from February 2020: info@robinwood.de
Keywords:
100% EEs, Procurement, Blogs & Portals, DE-News, Renewable, Climate protection, Tenant electricity, Sustainable management, New books and studies, PV, PlusEnergy house/settlement, Tools, Certification & Labels, Life cycle assessment
Electricity from the sun and wind is too expensive? Wrong: according to new studies, green electricity is cheaper than fossil energy worldwide and in Germany.
Since 2009, prices for wind power have fallen by a third, for solar power by 80 per cent and in the next decade, solar power is set to become a further 60 per cent cheaper. 170 countries now have targets for renewables, and large financial investors are looking for these secure plants. Electricity storage systems are also expected to be 65 per cent cheaper by 2020 and their capacity is set to multiply from 1 to 250 gigawatts. And the rival authority IEA, the International Energy Agency of the OECD, which for years tried to talk down renewables, now sees similarly rapid growth and falling prices.
Read the full article from 17.1.2017 on taz.de
Keywords:
DE-News, Renewable, New books and studies, News Blog Europe (without DE), Environmental policy, Economics
"Europe's largest rental scheme for e-load bikes has started in Cologne. The initiators see the project as an active contribution to the energy transition and want to transfer the system - if it is successful - to other cities."
Read the post:
https://enorm-magazin.de/europas-groesster-e-lastenrad-verleih
Keywords:
Car Free, Bike-/Velo-City, DE-News, Cologne, Mobility, News Blog Europe (without DE), News Blog NRW, eMobility, Ecology
In the run-up to the UN World Human Settlements Summit Habitat III, the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) points to the major challenges posed by increasing urbanisation. In its report "The Relocation of Humanity: The Transformative Power of Cities", the WBGU emphasises that a brief window of opportunity will open up in the coming decades of urbanisation "to set the course towards sustainability" - see Printed matter 18/9590. In this context, the Council recommends shortening the Habitat conference cycle from 20 to four years. The upcoming Habitat conference will take place from 17 to 20 October in Ecuador. The topic of "urbanisation and transformation" should also become a permanent item on the G20 agenda.
"The report is impressive in view of its wealth of arguments and diverse examples of urbanisation phenomena and the description of their effects. The Association of German Cities feels - not least due to its contributions to the success of the HABITAT III conference in Quito in October 2016 - in complete agreement with the report regarding the central role of cities in mastering the upcoming transformation challenges and utilising their opportunities. The challenges to urban transformation are clearly expressed: the call for a sustainable, globally coded urban development policy is a mandate to the global community and national policies to make cities capable of taking action and to urban societies to utilise this capacity for the benefit of the urban population."
Lord Mayor Dr Eva Lohse
President of the Association of German Cities
In its report, the WBGU presents a transformation strategy for the sustainable and "people-oriented design" of urbanisation. Cities play a particularly key role in this, as "the relocation of humanity could become the most powerful process of social change in the 21st century".
The force of the current urbanisation dynamic and its effects are so great that cities, urban societies, governments and international organisations worldwide must face up to this trend. A "business as usual" approach would lead to an unsustainable global urban society if urbanisation policy is not shaped. Only if cities and urban societies become sufficiently capable of acting can they realise their potential for sustainable development: It is in the cities that it will be decided whether the Great Transformation towards sustainability will succeed. This book discusses the conditions for success.
The report identifies five transformative, interlinked fields of action:
With regard to climate protection, for example, fossil CO₂ emission sources must be replaced by 2070, writes the WBGU. There would also have to be a "move away from a large part of the current infrastructure patterns" in order to reduce the temperature increase to significantly less than two degrees Celsius.
This link leads to the downloads of the expertises
www.wbgu.de/hg2016
Source: WGBU press release, 29/09/2016
Keywords:
DE-News, Communities, Media, New books and studies, News Blog Europe (without DE), Quarters, SDG 2030, Settlements, City, UN (United Nations), Environmental policy, Housing policy
