NRW.BANK.WEG-Kredit: Promotion for the energy-efficient refurbishment of condominiums

Published 13. November 2016

The new Development Loans of NRW.BANK is aimed at all condominium associations (WEGs) in NRW that want to modernise or rehabilitate the housing they mainly use themselves, have no commercial landlords as members and consist of at least five owners. Smaller WEGs can make use of the NRW.BANK.Gebäudesanierung promotion programme.

The usability of the credit extends over investments in

Energy efficiency, for example:
- Renewal of the heating system or its components
- Installation of new windows and insulation
- Facade renovation
Environmental protection, for example:
- Pollutant clean-up
- Resource conservation, for example through new sanitary installations
- Structural measures for flood protection
Accessibility, for example:
- Change of the building layout
- Removal of barriers
- Retrofitting with lifts and stairlifts
and the financing of maintenance measures.

How does the WEG loan work?

WEGs can finance individual measures with up to 10 million euros through the funding programme. A maximum of 30,000 euros is available per housing unit. The loan term is 10 years with a grace year and a fixed interest rate over the entire term. The loan is applied for by the property management company through the WEG's chosen principal bank. NRW.BANK assumes 50% of the risk of the principal bank.

Source: energieagentur.nrw

Keywords: Stock, Funding, News Blog NRW

ACP guidelines "Municipal climate policy - climate protection and adaptation strategies"

Published 24 March 2018

ACP Guide "Municipal Climate Policy - Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies

The 192-page guide from AKP - Fachzeitschrift für Alternative Kommunal Politik is now available for purchase for a nominal fee of 15 euros plus postage.

Climate protection has long been a topic in councils, but in many places climate change adaptation is not yet.

Experts from administration, politics and research have contributed to the guidelines for their own climate policy construction site; the Hessian Environment Minister Priska Hinz contributed the introduction.

The book is divided into the following four parts:

Fields of action: Energy (Julia Verlinden), (waste) water and flooding (Franz Kahle and Jürgen Rausch), planning, construction and transport (Christof Nolda), health (Anja Ritschel), environment (Peter Pluschke) and rural areas (Herbert Klemisch).

Structures and strategies: Joint Task Climate Protection (Oliver Decken), Climate Adaptation in Administrative Action (Cornelia Rösler), Adaptation Strategies (Ulrich Matthes) and Civil Protection (Helga Stulgies).

Finances: Funding programmes (Corinna Altenburg and Christine Krüger), financing models and divestment (Jens Allerheiligen), voluntary service or compulsory task (Simone Raskob and Kai Lipsius).

Thinking outside the box: International networks (Joachim Lorenz) and the Copenhagen climate protection concept (Britta Tornow).

Municipal checks can be used to examine where your own municipality stands.
Tips for the Council's work are highlighted in colour. If you want to read further, you will find cross-references to other parts of the text in square brackets.
Finally, at the end of each chapter, a short link and a QR code lead to a collection of links on our website www.akp-redaktion.de, which will be continuously updated even after the book has been published.

Table of contents and book orders at:
www.akp-redaktion.de/buecher/kkp.html

Keywords:
Stakeholders, Greening / climate adaptation, DE-News, Climate protection, Communities, New books and studies, Ecology

Published 22 October 2019

Affordable housing. Examples from NRW

"Housing: How is it better?" the story WDR by Justine Rosenkranz and Sara Wendhack.
Report
44 min, available until: 4.9.2020

https://www.ardmediathek.de/ard/video/die-story/wohnen-wie-geht-es-besser/…

Topics and Projects:
- Old velvet weaving mill in Krefeld
- Community housing project (cohousing) in Düren, 200 apartments in 7 buildings
- Student housing with seniors
- Cologne: Municipal housing policy for affordable housing. Increases in storeys, building communities

Keywords:
Cohousing, DE-News, Movies, Movies 11 to 45 Min, Communities, Media, News Blog NRW, Affordable housing, Social / Culture, Housing, Housing policy, Housing projects

Published 15 May 2012

Messages in 2012

12/2012: NABU Negative Award goes to Ilse Aigner
www.nabu.de/aktionenundprojekte/dinodesjahres

11/2012: Europe's tallest cross laminated timber skyscrapers with nine floors currently in Milan
www.proholz.at/...mailand...

Research project "PlusEnergyQuartier Oberursel" with about 150 apartments and commercial use starts
www.fr-online.de/...oberursel

10/2012: Built Environment release "Co-Housing in the Making“
The current issue of the English-language journal "Built Environment" deals with communal living on an international level. Authors from Finland, Sweden, Great Britain, Germany, the United States and the Netherlands deal with different aspects of communal living or "co-housing".
Issue reference: www.alexandrinepress.co.uk

10/2012: The most sustainable cities and municipalities of the German Sustainability Award 2012
www.difu.de/...deutscher-nachhaltigkeitspreis-2012...

10/2012: Solar cell record with 44% efficiency
www.solarserver.com/...world-record-solar-cell...

9/2012: IBA Hamburg's BIQ - Microalgae Building
The innovative project in Hamburg Wilhelmsburg is the first house in the world to supply itself with energy via a building façade made of photovoltaic collectors. The flexible interior design also sets standards for the urban life of the future
www.biq-wilhelmsburg.de

8/2012: Climate protection in municipalities: practical guide
The practical guide was funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and developed by the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu) in cooperation with the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (ifeu) and Climate Alliance. Difu was responsible for project management and leadership.
The guide, which was already published in 1997, was fundamentally revised in terms of content and structure due to the lively demand from municipalities throughout the Federal Republic and supplemented with current focal points and fields of action. The new guide once again contains numerous current practical examples that are intended to motivate local authorities to emulate or undertake their own climate protection activities.
www.leitfaden.kommunaler-klimaschutz.de

7/2012: On the website www.informationsdienst-holz.de information about planning and building with wood will be available again.

7/2012: Research team from Freiburg introduces natural hard foams from bark extract here:
www.pr.uni-freiburg.de/...

6/2012: Flagship project "Hamburg Water Cycle"In 770 residential units for approx. 2,000 inhabitants, toilet wastewater (black water) and other domestic wastewater (grey water) is discharged separately. The black water is collected in concentrated form via vacuum toilets with negative pressure technology and converted into biogas together with organic waste in a biogas plant:
www.hamburgwatercycle.de/...jenfelder-au

Past the need: 50,000 square meters of unletable office space in Hamburg's HafenCity
www.spiegel.de/...hamburgs-hafencity

5/2012: 20,000 MW output from German solar plants for the first time
www.iwrpressedienst.de/...

4/2012: Subsidy programmes for energy-efficient construction and refurbishment in full. The Budget Committee of the German Bundestag has released the full amount of funds for the CO2 Building Rehabilitation Programmes for 2012. This means that EUR 1.5 billion per year will be available for the KfW programmes from 2012 to 2014:
www.eco-info.de/...

3/2012: Leitfaden Nachhaltigkeitsorientierte Architekturwettbewerbe. Published by: Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg 2011
www.hamburg.de/lena

2/2012: Damien Hirst invests in 500 eco-homes in southern England
This was reported by various newspapers. According to the report, the houses will be equipped with wind turbines on the roofs, solar panels and state-of-the-art insulation technology. Hirst hopes that the settlement will become a model for sustainable living and a sustainable development of the region. In Devon, the 46-year-old artist already runs a restaurant, a studio and owns several properties. The estate's architect comes pen-led by Mike Rundell of London-based MRJ Rundell + Associates, Architects and Designers. Construction work on the 32-hectare site near Killacleave is due to start in 2013.

2/2012: Reference book "50 Solar Housing Estates in North Rhine-Westphalia". Published
www.energieagentur.nrw.de/solarsiedlungen/page.asp?InfoID=11022

1/2012: Largest Swiss timber construction in Minergie-P Eco construction, car-free living concept and multi-generation living in Oberwinterthur under construction
www.giesserei-gesewo.ch

1/2012: German construction booming in 2011 - 2012 no longer
The construction industry expects sales to grow by 1.0 percent in real terms in 2012. Following a boom year in 2011, the main construction industry association is now preparing its members for a difficult year in an uncertain overall economic environment.
www.heute.de/...

Keywords:
DE-News

Published 15 March 2022

Municipal heat turnaround: Bavaria's largest solar thermal plant

NATURSTROM is expanding its largest local heating project to date in Markt Erlbach, Franconia. In future, the eco-energy supplier will supply more than 130 customers with sustainable and locally generated heat - not only households but also municipal buildings and a large commercial enterprise. On 2,400 m² Bavaria's largest solar thermal plant is being built for this purpose.

In the current second construction phase, NATURSTROM is connecting more than 70 new heat consumers, including the largest customer, the honey bottler Breitsamer & Ulrich GmbH & Co. KG. The company is providing the land for an energy centre and Bavaria's largest solar thermal plant with an area of 2,400 m² available.

"The current turbulence on the European energy markets shows that we in Germany absolutely have to make ourselves less dependent on imports of fossil fuels," says NATURSTROM CEO Dr Tim Meyer. "With the heating turnaround towards decentralised renewable energies, we are not only doing the climate a great favour, but also ourselves and our economy. The local heating supply in Markt Erlbach is a great example of how the changeover can succeed."

Since 2019, NATURSTROM has been supplying 40 consumers with ecological heat at long-term stable prices via a wood pellet heating centre. After completion of the second construction phase, the local heating network will be 6.4 kilometres long. In addition to numerous private households and the Breitsamer company, the heat consumers also include smaller businesses and municipal buildings such as the school, the indoor swimming pool and an event hall. "We are pleased that so many and such different players in Markt Erlbach want to be part of the local heat turnaround," says Meyer.

After connecting all consumers, the total heat demand in the network is around 5,350 megawatt hours (MWh) per year; by covering this demand from renewable sources, approx. 1,800 tonnes of CO₂ saved. In addition to solar heat, NATURSTROM uses wood pellets from the region as fuel in the existing energy centre, and regional wood in the form of wood chips will also be used in the second energy centre once the second construction phase is completed. "With the raw material supply from the region, we can provide affordable and sustainable energy for our citizens in the long term. Especially for future generations, it is important to act decisively for climate protection," emphasises Markt Erlbach's First Mayor Dr Birgit Kreß.

The two energy centres and the local heating network are designed to be open to new technologies, so that modernisation and expansion to supply new consumers are possible.

The impetus for planning the local heating supply came from a renovation of the main street. The connection to the local heating network will mainly replace old, climate-damaging oil heating systems. Particularly due to the lack of gas supply infrastructure, more than 80 percent of the inhabitants in Markt Erlbach still used heating oil before the start of the first construction phase.

Source: PM Naturstrom AG

Keywords:
DE-News, Renewable, Climate protection, News Blog Bavaria, Solar thermal