Freiburg: Germany’s greenest city
It’s been a green role model for the rest of Europe since the 1970s, and today Germany’s sunshine capital continues to wear its eco-credentials proudly: run by a Green Party mayor, Freiburg boasts some of the most exciting environmentally-friendly projects on the continent.
Solar Settlement (Solarsiedlung) in Freiburg
The hillside townhouses of Freiburg’s Vauban district glisten in the sun, their solar panel roofing part of a major environmental project. Designed by Freiburg-based architectural guru Rolf Disch, they belong to the Solarsiedlung (Solar Settlement), a complex of 58 residential houses that produce more energy than they consume. The nearby Solar Ship business park is also connected to the settlement.
The houses, each with their own balcony, small patio and garden, are well insulated, feature automatic fresh air ventilation systems and three-glass windows. In the winter, the houses stay warm, and in the summer, the solar roof blocks the sun to keep the air cool.
Houses turn sun’s rays into cash
While the average German household consumes some 3,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per year, the plus-energy houses (as Disch has dubbed them) produce between 6,000 and 7,000 kWh per year. The excess electricity can be sold off and fed into the regular power grid, which means that families living in the Solarsiedlung can generate some additional income instead of paying increasingly high prices for oil, gas and electricity.
Disch himself lives in one such plus-energy house. On completion in 1994, it was among the first of its kind and was a true validation of the architect’s original vision – one which took many years to realise and which hadn’t been immediately embraced. Today, however, Disch is one of the most sought-after experts for sustainable building projects in the world.
It’s no coincidence that Disch’s playground is Freiburg, one of the most sustainable municipalities in the world and one which has been at the forefront of the green movement for over three decades.
A green mayor
Dieter Salomon is the only mayor of a large German city who belongs to the Green Party. Salomon has been mayor of Freiburg since 2002 and is an advocate of renewable energy sources, having lobbied for more wind energy plants to be installed in the nearby Black Forest.
While wind is an attractive alternative in Freiburg (the city’s five rotors produce some 10 million kWh per year), solar technology still plays the biggest role. Freiburg is home to a wealth of private photovoltaic installations, numerous solar technology companies, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, one of Europe's leading solar energy research laboratories.
It’s no wonder that Freiburg has branded itself the Solar Region. At the end of 2006, Freiburg had an overall solar module electricity generation capacity of 8.6 Megawatts (MW) and over 12,000 square meters worth of solar-thermal collectors to capture heat from the sun. Last year alone, 2 MW of new solar energy capacity was installed. Even the BadenovaStadion – the city’s famous soccer stadium where Bundesliga second division team SC Freiburg plays its home matches – has its roof decked out with solar panels.
Freiburg tops the Solarbundesliga
While this year SC Freiburg narrowly missed promotion to the Bundesliga’s first division, the city itself is competing extremely well in the Solarbundesliga, where German cities battle for the title of most solar-friendly city. Naturally, Freiburg tops the league.
In 2002, the city council – which is also dominated by the Green Party – set an ambitious goal. Their target for 2010 was to ensure that 10% of all energy consumed in the city would come from renewable energy sources. In addition, Freiburg would strive to lower its overall energy consumption by 10 percent. According to Salomon, these benchmarks are “not a utopia, they’re doable.” The city council concluded that pushing renewables in Freiburg also means supporting initiatives to establish biomass and geothermal energy generation.
Lowering energy consumption
To lower its energy consumption and continue the push to stop global warming, Freiburg has introduced several energy efficiency initiatives. Last year, the city launched a website where users can calculate the electricity savings potential hidden in their household.
Another groundbreaking project – this one over a decade old – has some 80,000 Freiburg households collecting their bio-waste to generate electricity. Every year, the city collects approximately 12,500 tons of bio-waste which is then processed and turned into electricity via biogas. Last year, Freiburg generated some 7 million kWh of electricity from this process. That’s enough power for 2,000 households. The process also saves some 5,000 tons of harmful carbon dioxide.
Activism doesn’t begin and end with the city council, which is why Freiburg, together with local businesses, established the Environment Award in 2005 – two prizes worth 3,750 euros each, presented to small businesses, schools, clubs and individuals for creative sustainable projects that benefit the environment.
Global warming is not news to the people of Freiburg: The city was introducing climate protection policies back in 1986 and was one of the first cities to actively tackle the problem. And in the future it will no doubt continue to be part of many more eco-friendly innovations.
Photo 3: Pixelio.de/ Dirk Schmidt
