Frankfurt and Nyíregyháza take action in the residential sector

by Blandine Pidoux on 15 December 2009 / 226 visites

Energie-Cités bakes fortune cookies for the Copenhagen negotiators:
10 inspiring local policies for 10 days of the Summit
Proven and successful local experiences in climate and energy matters are the best support the EU negotiators can get in Copenhagen. That is why Energie-Cités, with 20 years of experience in sustainable energy policy, has prepared 10 electronic fortune cookies to inspire the decision-makers during the Climate Summit COP 15.

In Frankfurt, low energy becomes a standard for the refurbishment of residential buildings

Modernisation of buildings, especially residential buildings, provides for one of the biggest potentials to save energy and reduce CO2 emissions. But this issue is faced with many problems: investment, shifting costs from the housing company to tenants, finding out the best saving standard to meet all requirements and interests.

In Frankfurt, more than 10 projects with a high standard of energy saving by insulation for very different types of residential houses, show, that energy and CO2 reduction of 50-90% can be reached by combining good insulation standard with CHP and/or solar energy. Modernisation of residential buildings to the energy level of new buildings or even 30% below this standard was supported by loans with low interest rates from the German KfW-subsidy bank.

Refurbishment of residential buildings is a crucial issue not only for energy and climate reasons, but also to keep and protect affordable dwellings for low and medium income people.

In Nyíregyháza, two big programmes to improve energy efficiency

Since 1997, the city of Nyíregyháza (HU) decided to modernise its district heating system and housing stock. This has been done with two programmes called:
- "Opening" (launched in 1997) to upgrade the thermal distribution circuits for more than 12,800 flats and to refurbish the existing housing stock.
- "Panel Programme" (started in 2001) which involved retrofitting panel blocks. Most of the flats involved in the programme were privately owned, which presented a challenge in securing agreement to retrofit. In Nyíregyháza, the problem was solved by subsidising the costs of the retrofits so that the household only bore one-third of the cost (one-third was provided by the State, and one-third by the Municipality). As a consequence retrofit measures proved to be more attractive for private flat owners.
The Panel Programme has resulted in energy savings of 26.8 TJ/year. An evaluation of the retrofitting measures has shown that an overall 68% energy saving can be achieved. In terms of the contribution of different components of the retrofit to reducing energy consumption, heating modernisation accounted for a 46% reduction, the replacement of windows 13%, and insulation of the building facade a 9% reduction.