Institute Living and Environment (IWU): Vision of the energy-efficient city
Published
In cooperation between the TU Darmstadt and the Institute Housing and Environment (IWU), the endowed junior professorship "Models of Housing and Energy Policy in Cities" was established and filled by the scientist Kai Schulze. He teaches and conducts research at the Institute of Political Science in the Department of Social and Historical Sciences at TU Darmstadt.
Schulze's research focuses on environmental and energy policy analysis. To this end, he combines theories and approaches of policy analysis, comparative politics and Europeanisation. The junior professorship could also build thematic bridges to the engineering sciences. At the same time, the Institute Housing and Environment expects valuable impulses. The IWU, a non-profit institute financed by the State of Hesse and the City of Darmstadt, conducts interdisciplinary research on the housing market and housing policy as well as on the efficient use of energy in buildings. "From the cooperation with the endowed junior professorship, we hope to make valuable contributions to make findings from research more usable for policy and societal advice," says Dr. Monika Meyer, managing director of IWU. The Institute will bear the personnel costs of the junior professorship, which is initially limited to three years and can be extended for a further three years.
In the interview worth reading Migration and Urban Planning: "We Can Immigration" in the taz of 14.6.2016, Leggewie refers to the urban Chilean designer Alejandro Aravena, who builds half a house for a few thousand US dollars so that the other half can be designed by the residents themselves. Aravena was recently awarded the Pritzker Prize, the Nobel Prize for architects.
Researchers at DIW Berlin have developed the "Ampel-Monitor Energiewende" - monitor the extent to which the government's energy policy agenda is being implemented - immense efforts are needed to close the gap between the announced targets and the current status quo
If the German government wants to achieve its energy policy goals, it must step up the pace. There are particularly large gaps between the current development and the targets for green hydrogen, electromobility and renewable heat, as the "Ampel-Monitor Energiewende" of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) shows. DIW researchers developed the monitor to track the progress of the energy transition towards climate neutrality using 15 indicators. The monitor, which is based on open data, accompanies progress on the government's goals with a focus on the period up to 2030. Selected results are now available on the DIW Berlin website (https://www.diw.de/ampel-monitor) are provided in the form of interactive graphics and short analyses and are updated regularly. All indicators and the underlying data can also be found open source on the Open Energy Tracker platform (https://openenergytracker.org).
"Our traffic light monitor makes it clear: the current pace of the energy transition is far too slow to achieve the 2030 targets," says DIW energy economist Wolf-Peter Schill, co-initiator of the monitor, which is presented in a study today. "If the government does not want to fall behind its target path, it must implement concrete and far-reaching steps promptly."
The pace of photovoltaic expansion must be tripled
The monitor shows: If the government wants to achieve its photovoltaic targets by 2030, it will have to triple the pace of expansion compared to the trend of the past twelve months, and even quadruple it for onshore wind power. At the current rate, the targets would clearly be missed. This would also make it impossible to achieve the coalition's goal of increasing the share of renewable energies in electricity consumption from the current 42 percent to 80 percent in 2030.
There is also a large gap in renewable heat, for which a share of renewable energies of 50 percent is envisaged in 2030. For this to happen, the share must grow by almost four percentage points per year - although it has not even increased by three percentage points since 2012.
"The Federal Government's to-do list is still long. The energy policy goals that have been set are not self-fulfilling; development must gain momentum in all areas." Alexander Roth
E-car fleet still growing very slowly - charging infrastructure inadequate
If the coalition's goal of increasing the e-car fleet to 15 million vehicles by 2030 is to be achieved, an average of around 130,000 vehicles must be registered in Germany every month. In addition to the existing purchase premiums, the EU ban on combustion engines, which is currently being voted on, could certainly contribute to more electromobility," explains study author Adeline Guéret.
According to the Monitor's data, the charging infrastructure must increase even more if the target is not to be missed. Instead of the current 1200 charging points per month, 8,700 would have to go into operation - around seven times as many.
From practically zero to ten gigawatts in green hydrogen
Most needs to happen with green hydrogen, as the traffic light monitor shows: The electrolysis capacity of around ten gigawatts in 2030 targeted in the coalition agreement still seems a long way off, given an electrical capacity of around 60 megawatts at the end of last year.
"With its open and constantly updated energy data, our traffic light monitor makes an important contribution to an informed and fact-based energy policy debate," concludes study author Alexander Roth. "It shows that the German government still has a long to-do list. The goals set are not self-fulfilling; development must gain momentum in all areas."
At the end of the UN conference Habitat III in Quito (Ecuador), the environmental and development organization Germanwatch draws a mixed balance. "Around 50,000 people took part in the conference. This alone shows that cities are considered to be of great importance on the way to a sustainable world. It is very good that the adopted New Urban Agenda recognises cities as important players in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate targets," says Lisa Junghans, expert on climate change, adaptation and urban transformation at Germanwatch. However, she qualifies: "The New Urban Agenda is not concrete enough in parts. Citizens will not feel directly addressed and there is a complete lack of measurable goals and criteria for monitoring the success of the agenda. It remains to be seen to what extent the agenda really supports cities in their development towards greater sustainability and a higher quality of life. Civil society in particular will have a key role to play in the coming years to ensure that the principles adopted here for future urban development have an impact."
Habitat III was the third World Conference on Human Settlements and Sustainable Urban Development after 1976 and 1996 and is intended to define guidelines for future urban development. Despite the highly participatory process in the preparation of the New Urban Agenda, the negotiations in the final phase took place, as expected, exclusively within the circle of government negotiators. Junghans: "Although this process is a classic UN process driven by states, it is problematic that city representatives are excluded from the final decisions on their own development."
Germanwatch is particularly positive about the fact that the final document grants cities more self-determination and ownership in the implementation of the New Urban Agenda and that "no one is to be left behind" - a reference to the particularly vulnerable population groups that must be included in the planning and implementation of future urban development policy.
The hope that a larger number of cities would lead the way with voluntary commitments, for example towards climate neutrality, has unfortunately not materialised. "Although there have been some very good announcements from civil society as well as from Germany and the EU regarding the creation of housing and climate-friendly mobility, concrete announcements from local governments themselves have been very limited," says Junghans.
Source: Germanwatch press release, 20 October 2016
Trailer: Living in Freiburg-Vauban. How building communities are shaping a district of the future.
Trailer: Living in Freiburg-Vauban. How building communities are shaping a district of the future.">order the DVD via www.prigge-multimediaart.de
Duration: 56 Min, German, July 2011
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In the interview worth reading 
