According to a recent survey of Germany's 700 largest cities and municipalities, only 6 percent of municipalities feel overwhelmed by the current refugee numbers.
From September, UrStrom eG will offer its e-car sharing users a customer-friendly cooperative booking app. The goal is a common e-car sharing platform for energy cooperatives throughout Europe.
Mainz, 23.08.2019 Select, book and open electric cars with your smartphone. These are the functions of the cooperative booking app "e-Carsharing in Bürgerhand", which the UrStrom BürgerEnergieGenossenschaft in Mainz is the first German energy cooperative to use. "The smartphone becomes the car key," says Klaus Grieger, project manager for electromobility at UrStrom eG. The four-language booking app has already been in use for some time at energy cooperatives in Belgium and Spain. "The app is extremely practical," says Klaus Grieger enthusiastically.
After UrStrom eG, other energy cooperatives in Rhineland-Palatinate will use the booking app. "We first want to optimise the app regionally for use in Germany so that we can then attract energy cooperatives throughout Germany to use the joint platform," says Dr Verena Ruppert, Managing Director of Landesnetzwerk Bürgerenergiegenossenschaften Rheinland-Pfalz e. V. (LaNEG) e.V. There are currently eight energy cooperatives working in LaNEG's e-car sharing working group that want to launch local e-car sharing projects or are already doing so. Energy cooperatives can also use the cooperative app to offer companies and municipalities needs-based e-carsharing solutions. The booking platform is the first step towards establishing the cooperative brand "e-Carsharing in Bürgerhand" throughout Germany.
At the end of 2018, citizen energy cooperatives from four European countries founded The Mobility Factory (TMF) as an umbrella cooperative of European e-carsharing cooperatives. TMF provides a professional e-carsharing platform to its members. Currently, all TMF members can use the booking app as licensees and participate in the further development of the system. In the future, the entire value chain in e-car sharing will be in the hands of the cooperatives and thus be user-oriented and independent of purely profit-oriented corporate structures. "The use and further development will remain in the hands of citizens, in the democratic structures of cooperatives," says Michael König, Chairman of TMF.
Currently, about 100 electric vehicles are in use at member cooperatives in Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. In three years, there should be at least 1800 vehicles available to all users of cooperative e-car sharing across Europe.
Keywords:
CarSharing, DE-News, Communities, Mobility, News Blog Europe (without DE), News Blog RLP, Resource efficiency, eMobility, Ecology
It's an attitude to life: without a car, but with a bicycle. When the brakes of my car rusted due to too long a standstill, it was clear: I don't need one any more. What is the point of having a car [...]?
Read the article from 5.4.2017:
www.bikecitizens.net/de/ohne-auto-leben
Keywords:
Car Free, Mobility, News Blog Hesse, Sufficiency
In Vienna, as a rule, no residential building may be erected without a solar system in the future. This is stipulated in an amendment to the building code, which is currently being evaluated, the red-green city government informed on Monday. Currently, such a photovoltaic obligation applies only to industrial buildings.
With the upcoming amendment, the requirement will now be extended to educational buildings on the one hand and to residential buildings on the other, informed Kathrin Gaal (SPÖ), city councillor for housing, and Peter Kraus, spokesperson for the Green Party on planning, in a joint statement.
"The amount of the obligation for residential buildings is calculated in such a way that the electricity produced can be consumed directly in the house (e.g. in the common parts of the house)," the press release explained. Thanks to subsidy incentives, however, the city hall hopes that many building applicants will not only comply with the minimum requirements, but will also install larger systems for converting solar energy into electricity, if this makes sense.
If it is not possible to install a solar system in a new building for legal, technical or economic reasons, the developer must offer replacement areas in order to meet the obligation. However, residential buildings are exempt from this requirement.
With the amendment of the Vienna Building Code, the city also wants to take a step towards digitalisation. The amendment creates a legal basis for the electronic processing of all official steps such as the submission of the building notification, the application for a building permit, the notification of the start of construction or the notification of completion. However, the authority has the possibility to demand the submission of a copy of the building plans in the electronic approval procedure, if this is necessary for the implementation of the procedure.
Gaal saw the announced reform as a way "to optimally prepare Vienna for the opportunities and challenges of climate change and digitalisation". "Solar systems on Vienna's roofs will become the standard and accelerate the phase-out of fossil energy," added Kraus.
APA PM of 27.4.2020
Keywords:
Renewable, Climate protection, Communities, News Blog Europe (without DE), News Blog Austria, PV, City, Environmental policy, Vienna
of the city of Freiburg im Breisgau
Contractor: Joachim Eble Architecture, Rolf Messerschmidt, Tübingen
EGS-Plan engineering company for energy, building and solar technology mbH
IER Institute for Energy Economics and Rational Use of Energy, University of Stuttgart
Results: When analysing the total annual costs, the running costs and revenues in the utilisation phase are taken into account in addition to the capital-related investment costs. The result of this full cost calculation is a relatively homogeneous cost level for all building energy standards examined. Due to the subsidies for the better standards, lower energy costs and the use of subsidies, the cost level remains relatively constant among the building energy standards. Thus, higher building energy standards up to the "KfW 40 Plus Standard" are already economically attractive today.
The influence of building energy standards can be classified as subordinate when considering total consumer spending.
Download the full study from April 2016:
www.freiburg.de/...Bericht_energetische_Baustandards_2016.pdf
The framework of the study is presented here:
www.freiburg.de/pb/,Lde/232501.html
Keywords:
Construction and operating costs, DE-News, Media, New books and studies, News Blog Baden-Württemberg, Housing, Economics
