On-site infrastructure | Heat transition in existing districts
On-site infrastructure | Heat transition in existing neighborhoods
The building sector should only emit 67 million tons of CO2 by 2030 - compared to around 210 million tons in 1990. After that, it must become “almost climate neutral” by the middle of the century. This requires great effort and the greatest leverage lies in the existing building and not in the new building. This poses a major challenge for municipalities and cities.
Municipal heat planning: Active role for building owners
Federal and state law obliges cities and municipalities to draw up heat plans and to show and implement paths to climate neutrality. The key players here are the building owners. Only their active participation makes the heating transition in the existing building appear realistic. There is currently a sobering picture: the situation in existing buildings is characterized by a renovation backlog. The reason for this is the reference point of a single building or even an apartment. The federal government's previous measures refer to this (see figure).
In such a perspective, few options are available.
Challenge: Develop potential for climate protection in the district
If, on the other hand, you broaden your perspective and include neighboring buildings or even the entire district, the conditions for climate-neutral solutions are significantly better. In order to tap this potential, new strategies are required: the owners in a neighborhood alone do not have the opportunity to effectively advance the heating transition. Since comprehensive insulation is often not possible in old buildings, other solutions must be sought for existing buildings. New opportunities could arise through local heating networks. They make it possible to integrate different decentralized heat sources as well as storage systems. In order to organize this, other actors must be involved in addition to the owners, for example municipal energy supply companies or “energy cooperatives” created from private initiatives. Every existing neighborhood needs a specific strategy.
itp:ne has the technical expertise and experience with dialogue formats to initiate processes in the districts and bring them to a successful conclusion.
Develop potential for climate protection in existing buildings
Insight
Warm in winter and not too hot in summer: Regulating the temperature of existing buildings without resorting to fossil fuels requires solutions that go beyond the individual apartment or house.
In the “Interactive agent-based heat networks” project, an itp:ne team investigated the possibility of tapping into climate protection potential in local heat networks: They replace isolated solutions for individual households, use decentralized (waste) heat sources and thus offer new business models in the Quarters. In combination with new storage media, buildings can be cooled in summer and then used for heating in winter.
A look from the infrastructure perspective, however, shows that only the interaction of different technical and organizational measures, linked by a connecting pipeline network, makes it realistic to achieve the climate protection goals. If designed appropriately, building owners also have the opportunity to make active contributions themselves: they are not just passive consumers of heat, but rather grow into the role of prosumers.