Real estate bubble: Alarm bells are ringing at the Bundesbank
Published
"The development on the housing markets puts the German Bundesbank on alert. The crisis traffic light would meanwhile be "on yellow or even dark yellow". In order to counteract a real estate bubble in time, Bundesbank board member Andreas Dombret is calling for stricter measures for real estate financing."
Has Federal Building Minister Barbara Hendricks (SPD) raised expectations with the Alliance for Affordable Housing and Building that ultimately cannot be fulfilled? The Bündnis 90/ Die Grünen parliamentary group in the Bundestag is investigating her doubts about the meaningfulness and effectiveness of the alliance in a question. And they want to know: How and when will the alliance be continued?
The member states of the United Nations want to agree on a new urban agenda as part of the Habitat III conference in Quito. This "New Urban Agenda" is intended to serve as a political guideline for urban development over the next two decades. Federal Building Minister Barbara Hendricks takes part in the official opening of the Habitat III conference together with Friedrich Kitschelt, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Hendricks: "All over the world, people are moving to cities. Cities therefore hold the key to a sustainable and climate-friendly world. It is important to invest in the right infrastructure today. Cities need support for this. They must be put in a position to fulfil the demands of their inhabitants for decent housing, access to energy, clean water or sewage and waste disposal, but also for education and participation. This is what I will be campaigning for in Quito."
Half of the world's population already lives in cities today. By 2050, this figure is expected to rise to two thirds. Around 90 per cent of this growth is taking place in developing and emerging countries. At the same time, cities are responsible for around 70 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Habitat III is a UN process that addresses the development of cities around the world against the backdrop of urbanisation and places it in the context of the global sustainability goals of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Climate Agreement. The "New Urban Agenda", which is to be adopted in Quito, will provide governments, cities and local and regional actors with a globally applicable framework for action for the sustainable development of cities.
The Federal Government is committed to ensuring that cities are recognised as development actors in an integrated urban development policy. Only if cities and regions are strong and have a say in their urban development concerns can they offer a high quality of life for their citizens and enable democratic participation. In the negotiations at Habitat III, Germany will contribute its experience with the principle of subsidiarity, local self-government with the provision of adequate financial resources, urban development and housing promotion and the model of the compact European city.
The World Conference of Cities takes place every twenty years. Habitat III follows on thematically from the two previous conferences in Vancouver (1976) and Istanbul (1996). Around 30,000 participants from 180 countries are expected to attend the conference in Quito, including delegates from governments, academia and civil society organisations. On the third day, Federal Building Minister Hendricks will be travelling on to Costa Rica. State Secretary for Construction Gunther Ad-ler will accompany the German delegation together with State Secretary for Development Kitschelt until the end of the conference on 20 October.
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
At a hydroelectric power plant operated by the energy company Energiedienst in Grenzach-Wylen, the production of green hydrogen has been running successfully for four months. The project produces 500 kilograms of hydrogen per day.
Hydrogen from hydropower: successful start for one of the largest power-to-gas plants in Germany to date. This is reported by the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW). The megawatt plant has been in operation for four months in April 2020 and is functioning reliably. A research electrolyser connected to it is also running successfully. The ZSW is coordinating the project. The operator of the commercial plant is the energy supplier Energiedienst AG.
The power-to-gas plant with an electrical connected load of one megawatt produces renewable hydrogen using electricity from the Rhine hydroelectric power plant in Wyhlen. Since it is not necessary to use the public electricity grid, grid fees and the EEG surcharge do not apply. In addition, high full load hours can be achieved because the hydropower is available practically around the clock. This further improves the economic efficiency and enables extensive operating experience to be gained quickly.
He said the plant has been running regularly since early December 2019 and has had 1,850 hours of operation since then. Previously, it was in trial operation. The monitoring system set up by the ZSW, which measures all essential components and subsystems, functions perfectly. The plant operates fully automatically in 24-hour operation both at full load and in various partial load conditions.
Efficiency of 66 percent
The ZSW monitors operation with the help of remote data transmission to Stuttgart and automated data evaluation. The overall efficiency of electricity to high-purity hydrogen compressed to 300 bar is currently up to 66 percent in relation to the calorific value of the gas. In addition, the researchers are investigating ageing effects and deriving potential improvements from the data.
So far, the plant has filled 62 trailers with hydrogen suitable for fuel cells. Each of these transportable containers holds around 300 kilograms. The plant can produce up to 500 kilograms of hydrogen per day. This is enough for an average daily mileage of more than 1,000 fuel cell cars.
Improved electrolysis
The research project docked to the commercial plant is also progressing positively. In a research plant, the scientists are testing improved electrolysis blocks with a maximum output of 300 kilowatts in parallel operation with the commercial plant. They should further reduce the price of hydrogen. But companies could also test and optimize components there.
Last year, the ZSW and its research partners already achieved an initial success during the test operation of the plant: with new electrode coatings, the researchers achieved 20 percent more power density compared to the electrolysis blocks of the industrial plant section. This means that less volume and material are required for the same output.
Goal: Halve hydrogen price
Since the investment costs are also based on the construction volume and the electrolysis units account for the largest share of costs in the conversion of renewable electricity at around 40 percent, progress in this area is automatically reflected in the price of hydrogen. For manufacturers of electrolysis plants, development is therefore an important factor for further cost reduction. The long-term goal of the ZSW researchers and Energiedienst engineers is to roughly halve the current production costs of electricity-based hydrogen.
The state of Baden-Württemberg supports the Lighthouse project with a total of 4.5 million euros. In 2019, a project based on this was selected by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology as one of the winners of the first round of the "Reallabore der Energiewende" ideas competition. A total of twelve partners are on board for this major project.
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