Despite increased share of green electricity: government continues to put the brakes on energy transition
Published
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
Stadtwerke Ludwigsburg-Kornwestheim is building one of the largest solar thermal plants in Germany with a collector area of over 10,000 m². The way is clear for another forward-looking project in Ludwigsburg: Stadtwerke Ludwigsburg-Kornwestheim GmbH (SWLB) has won the funding call for municipal climate protection model projects as part of the national climate protection initiative of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety in Berlin.
Their funding application for the SolarHeatGrid model project for the 'construction and connection of one of the largest solar thermal plants in Germany to an optimised heating network', in which the City of Ludwigsburg is involved as a cooperation partner, was approved. The official handover of the Municipal Climate Protection Model Project grant to Bodo Skaletz, Managing Director of SWLB, took place on 12 May 2017 by Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, in the presence of the Lord Mayor of the City of Ludwigsburg and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of SWLB, Werner Spec, and the Lord Mayor of the City of Kornwestheim and Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Stadtwerke.
"In terms of the amount of funding, our solar thermal project is the front-runner in the ranking of the seven projects that were also approved. The federal government is contributing 10.4 million euros to the realisation of Ludwigsburg's large-scale project, which should inspire imitation throughout Germany," says a delighted Bodo Skaletz, Managing Director of SWLB.
"This renewal of the district heating network with solar heat is particularly forward-looking with regard to the feasibility of municipal heat supply with renewable energies. Swapping fossil for renewable - it works. I congratulate Ludwigsburg on this major high-tech piece of the puzzle, also in terms of CO2 savings and improved energy efficiency," confirms Parliamentary State Secretary Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter.
"The 'SolarHeatGrid' is an important building block in the implementation of our overall energy concept for Ludwigsburg," explains Mayor Werner Spec. "We are thus significantly expanding our heat supply on a renewable basis and linking it across municipal boundaries. This is entirely in the spirit of sustainable settlement development: as cities, we must continue to commit ourselves locally with all our strength to environmental and climate protection."
The official start of this lighthouse project is 1 June 2017. The model project is scheduled to take a total of three years. As part of the project, the existing Ludwigsburg district heating network, which already provides heat for large parts of the city using mainly renewable raw materials, will be merged with the Rotbäumlesfeld, Technische Dienste Ludwigsburg (Gänsfußallee 21) and Kornwestheim-Nord networks, which are currently still supplied with fossil fuels. The construction of the solar thermal plant in connection with a large heat storage tank, which is to be built at the location of the CHP plant, will additionally feed high-quality, regeneratively generated heat into the expanded interconnected grid. This will further increase the amount of heat from renewable energies. With the help of the heat storage facility, the energy generated will also be available when there is little or no solar radiation.
The base load heat of the fossil-fuelled heating centres of the individual grids can thus be replaced by the largely regeneratively generated heat of the expanded interconnected grid. Approximately five kilometres of new district heating pipes will be laid over the next three years to connect the solar thermal system and the interconnected grid. In addition to the CO2 savings that will be achieved through the growing share of renewable energies in the expanded district heating network, the declared goal of the large-scale project is to increase energy efficiency. "In order to ensure that energy is used as efficiently as possible, it is not only the heat generation and distribution by SWLB that is decisive, but also the consumer side," Skaletz explains and adds: "As part of the network interconnection, measures are therefore to be implemented to reduce the so-called return temperatures, on which the performance of our district heating network depends to a large extent."
SWLB submitted the funding application in November 2016. The project aims to increase the share of renewable energies in the district heating network and to actively promote local climate protection and the energy transition at the local level by reducing CO2 emissions. More information on the municipal climate protection model project at: www.swlb.de/solar-heat-grid
PM of the Stadtwerke Ludwigsburg-Kornwestheim from 12.05.2017
Since 2012, the DGNB certification system has been a tool for municipalities that helps them to optimise neighbourhoods in terms of sustainability and to document this through an award. For this system, the DGNB has now specifically further developed the criteria catalogue and significantly reduced the scope through adjustments. According to the DGNB in its press release, this would reduce the effort and costs for building owners "without compromising on quality". New in the updated system version are topics such as light pollution, smart infrastructure, governance, resilience and adaptability.
The revision of the criteria that has now taken place relates to the use profiles for urban districts and commercial districts. The restructuring and the significant reduction in scope from 46 to 30 criteria are the result of a targeted process in which a large number of experts from the DGNB network were involved.
The innovations in detail
In terms of content, numerous adjustments were made. For example, the criterion "social and functional mix" - a core issue of sustainable neighbourhood development - was given a stronger weighting. On the other hand, some topics that previously had only a minimal influence on the overall assessment were dropped. These include, for example, the criteria "art in construction" or "building site/construction process". Numerous other criteria were combined with related topics.
Four criteria were newly integrated or fundamentally revised. The criterion "Emissions / Immissions", which was previously called "Noise and Sound Protection", was expanded to include the topics of air quality and light pollution. The criterion "governance" aims to create structures in the planning stage that will endure after the realisation of the neighbourhood. The entirely new criterion of "resilience and adaptability" aims to promote neighbourhood development that implies the highest possible flexibility and resilience to possible disruptive events. The "Smart Infrastructure" criterion has been greatly expanded in its approach. This includes, among other things, the question of the extent to which digitalisation is fundamentally integrated into neighbourhood planning and what infrastructural prerequisites there are for this - in the buildings and the open spaces alike. This criterion, which takes into account the topic of "smart cities", was deliberately formulated in an open manner, as there is currently a great deal of technological movement in this area.
In order to ensure the international applicability of the DGNB system for neighbourhoods, the content of some criteria was expanded. This applies, for example, to the criterion "environmental risks", in which internationally relevant risks such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or tsunamis were added in addition to the environmental hazards that frequently occur in Germany, such as storms or floods.
More green flat roofs and open spaces planted as insect-friendly as possible in new building areas - these are the key points of a local law that the building and environment deputation is dealing with today. For new buildings with flat roofs of 100 square metres or more, greening will be mandatory. Row houses and hall roofs, for which greening would cause unreasonably high costs, remain exempt. The greening of new flat roofs serves, among other things, to reduce flooding caused by heavy rain. Likewise, the planting of open spaces will be obligatory in new buildings in order to create more habitat for endangered insects in the densely populated city and to promote the infiltration of water. "With more green roofs, Bremen is preparing itself for the consequences of climate change," says parliamentary group leader Maike Schaefer, "we Greens have been campaigning for this for a long time and are pleased with the decision. Extreme precipitation will hit Bremen more frequently as a result of climate change. We have to contain the danger of flooding caused by prolonged heavy rainfall. Flooded cellars and flooded streets affect people's lives and threaten the logistics location. In order not to leave Bremen out in the rain, we will henceforth prescribe more green flat roofs. Green roofs retain precipitation. A large part of the water evaporates, the rest runs off with a time delay and thus relieves the sewage system. Walk-on flat roofs can also be used as attractive recreational areas with the plants. Last but not least, green roofs filter pollutants from the air, provide a pleasant building climate during heat waves and serve endangered insects. Insect protection must be given more weight. The dramatic loss of bees, butterflies & co. due to agricultural toxins and sealing is threatening an ecological disaster: flowers lack pollinators, birds lack food, pests lack natural enemies. Small insects are ecological giants. We must stop the loss of insects. Green roofs are just as suitable for this as insect-friendly planted areas in new development areas."
See also:
"Bremen wants to be the first major city with more than 500,000 inhabitants to stipulate that larger new buildings must be greened with flat roofs" (1. 4. 2019) http://taz.de/Pflanzen-auf-Flachdaechern/!5582020/
Dr. Kirsten David, a researcher at HafenCity University (HCU) Hamburg, has developed an innovative method for determining rent increases after energy efficiency measures: By means of functional cost splitting, rent increases become appropriate and comprehensible. The planning of the energetic measures is also ecologically optimized. For her dissertation entitled "Functional Cost Splitting for the Determination of Rent Increases after Energy Efficiency Measures", the scientist today receives the "BUND Research Award 2020". With the research award, the Bund für Umwelt- und Naturschutz (BUND) honors scientific work on sustainable development.
Rent increases due to energy-efficient building modernisation are legally permissible and politically desired as an investment incentive. After all, according to the German Energy Agency (dena), around 35% of Germany's total energy consumption is attributable to the building sector. An increase in the renovation rate is therefore necessary from a climate policy perspective.
However, while the legislators assume that such measures can be implemented economically and without affecting the rent, the experience of many tenants is different: Often the rent increases exceed the saved heating and energy costs many times over. In extreme cases, tenants can no longer afford their apartments. "To this day, energy-efficient building refurbishment has a reputation as a gentrification tool," says David. With the method she developed to determine appropriate rent increases, the 45-year-old scientist also wants to contribute to an increased social acceptance of corresponding measures.
"The basis of the politically expected increase amounts is the so-called coupling principle," explains the architect. "Like the Energy Saving Ordinance, it assumes that energy efficiency measures will always be implemented when a comprehensive refurbishment is due anyway. The sticking point: only the modernization costs entitle landlords* to rent increases, but not the costs for the renovation. The latter must be deducted from the total investment sum as "anyway costs". Eight percent of the remaining costs can be passed on to the tenants as a modernisation charge.
"The current regulation is insufficient. In practice, there are manifold demarcation problems between modernisation costs relevant to rent increases and maintenance costs not relevant to rent increases," says David. The method she developed, on the other hand, focuses on the climate-relevant improvement of each individual building component compared to its condition before the construction measure. "Functional cost splitting thus corresponds to the actual basic idea of the legislators, is practicable and enables an appropriate and comprehensible allocation to modernisation or refurbishment costs," says David.
According to the scientist, her approach leads to the omission of measures that are nonsensical from a structural engineering point of view and do not bring about any climate-relevant improvement of the building components: "With my method, such measures are not relevant for rent increases and are therefore uneconomical for landlords. In addition, your calculation method ensures that the modernization levy actually approaches the level of the ancillary cost savings as a rule. The award winner is therefore particularly pleased that the sustainability aspect of her work has been recognised with the BUND Research Award: "Rental housing stock can only be developed sustainably if ecological, economic and social aspects are given equal consideration. Functional cost splitting makes a significant contribution to this."
This year, the BUND Research Award will be presented at a virtual conference. Among other things, keynote speaker and environmental scientist Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker will discuss with the three award winners how science can develop more relevance and effectiveness for sustainability goals. The transfer into practice is also an important concern for David. Her next goal is to further develop functional cost splitting into an instrument that can also be understood by laypersons - preferably as an online tool.
Personal details:
Kirsten David is a guest researcher at HCU in the subject areas "Design and Analysis of Structures" with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Annette Bögle and "Construction Economics" with Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Reinhold Johrendt as well as a lecturer in the interdisciplinary study programmes. Her doctoral thesis was supervised by Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Reinhold Johrendt and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Krüger, (subject area "Project Management and Project Development in Urban Planning") and is freely available: https://edoc.sub.uni-hamburg.de//hcu/volltexte/2019/508/.
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.