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Renew­able ener­gies in the city: 6 inno­v­a­tive approach­es to ener­gy gen­er­a­tion from ger­man impact star­tups

The chal­lenge of ener­gy sup­ply in cities: Cities are dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed areas with high ener­gy require­ments. At the same time, they often offer lim­it­ed space for tra­di­tion­al forms of renew­able ener­gy gen­er­a­tion such as large wind tur­bines or exten­sive solar fields. Cre­ative solu­tions are there­fore need­ed to meet the spe­cif­ic chal­lenges of urban envi­ron­ments.

The ener­gy tran­si­tion is no longer just an issue for rur­al regions with large wind farms and solar fields. Cities also play a deci­sive role in the tran­si­tion to renew­able ener­gies. Urban areas offer numer­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties to gen­er­ate clean ener­gy and improve the qual­i­ty of life of res­i­dents at the same time. In this blog post, we take a look at inno­v­a­tive approach­es from 6 impact star­tups to ener­gy gen­er­a­tion in urban areas.

Solu­tion: bal­cony and win­dow pow­er plants

Rooftop solar sys­tems are one of the best-known meth­ods of gen­er­at­ing renew­able ener­gy in cities. By util­is­ing exist­ing roof sur­faces, build­ings can be trans­formed into small pow­er plants. Mod­ern solar mod­ules have become more effi­cient and afford­able, which is fur­ther fuelling their spread. Solar pan­els on the roofs of res­i­den­tial build­ings, office blocks and even car parks make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to reduc­ing urban CO2 emis­sions. The prob­lem: In cities like Berlin, over 84% of peo­ple live in rent­ed apart­ments and there­fore most of them can­not afford to install a solar sys­tem on their roof.

This is why bal­cony pow­er plants are anoth­er excit­ing devel­op­ment in the field of urban ener­gy gen­er­a­tion. These small, mod­u­lar solar sys­tems can be eas­i­ly installed on bal­cony rail­ings or ter­races and offer ten­ants and home­own­ers the oppor­tu­ni­ty to gen­er­ate their own elec­tric­i­ty. With min­i­mal instal­la­tion effort and cost, bal­cony pow­er plants can help reduce elec­tric­i­ty bills and reduce depen­dence on fos­sil fuels. They are a prac­ti­cal and acces­si­ble solu­tion for the urban pop­u­la­tion to active­ly par­tic­i­pate in the ener­gy tran­si­tion.

Our impact start­up We Do Solar brings solar pow­er to your bal­cony and makes ener­gy pro­duc­tion acces­si­ble for every­one. More infor­ma­tion at: we​.do​.solar

There is also a solu­tion for peo­ple with­out their own bal­cony: win­dow pow­er plants. These nar­row PV mod­ules fit on your win­dowsill. More infor­ma­tion at: www​.fen​sterkraftwerk​.de

Solu­tion: Ten­ant Pow­er

Com­mu­ni­ty-Gen­er­at­ed Ener­gy

Ten­ant pow­er projects are an excel­lent way to make the ben­e­fits of renew­able ener­gies acces­si­ble to ten­ants. In these projects, solar pow­er gen­er­at­ed on the roof of a rental build­ing is direct­ly sup­plied to the ten­ants. This allows for decen­tral­ized and local ener­gy sup­ply, reduces elec­tric­i­ty costs for ten­ants, and con­tributes to the reduc­tion of CO2 emis­sions. Ten­ant pow­er mod­els pro­mote com­mu­ni­ty and cre­ate aware­ness of the impor­tance of renew­able ener­gies in an urban con­text.

Impact start­up PANELY inspects your build­ing, plans and installs the pho­to­volta­ic sys­tem on the roof of apart­ment blocks. They con­clude the nec­es­sary elec­tric­i­ty con­tracts with ten­ants, mea­sure and bill con­sump­tion for you in accor­dance with the law. Ten­ants receive solar pow­er from the roof as long as the sun is shin­ing and green elec­tric­i­ty from the grid when it is dark. More infor­ma­tion at: pan​e​ly​.de

Solu­tion: Wind ener­gy

The rev­o­lu­tion­ary wind sail from we4everyone

Uti­liz­ing wind ener­gy in urban envi­ron­ments has his­tor­i­cal­ly been chal­leng­ing due to sev­er­al fac­tors. First, the com­plex and tur­bu­lent wind pat­terns caused by tall build­ings and nar­row streets make it dif­fi­cult for tra­di­tion­al wind tur­bines to oper­ate effi­cient­ly. Addi­tion­al­ly, noise and aes­thet­ic con­cerns have made large wind tur­bines less desir­able in dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed areas. The lim­it­ed space for instal­la­tion and the high­er cost of adapt­ing wind tech­nolo­gies for urban set­tings have also been sig­nif­i­cant bar­ri­ers. 

With inno­va­tions such as the wind sail from our impact start­up we4everyone, these chal­lenges are being addressed, mak­ing wind ener­gy a more viable option for cities. This inno­v­a­tive device is designed to effi­cient­ly gen­er­ate wind ener­gy even in dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed areas with tur­bu­lent urban winds. we4everyone brings sails to land, wind pow­er to urban envi­ron­ments and a new tech­nol­o­gy to mar­ket. Wind pow­er does not rely on rotors and uni­form strong winds – instead, their wind sail con­verts tur­bu­lences and light winds in green ener­gy. Urban wind ener­gy is avail­able in win­ter and dur­ing nights and there­fore an effi­cient com­ple­men­tary to solar ener­gy.

The co-founders Maria Pozder and Math­ias John are cur­rent­ly crowd­fund­ing their impact start­up. You can find more infor­ma­tion about their cam­paign on Start­next: www​.start​next​.com/​w​e​4​e​v​e​r​y​one

Solu­tion: Green facades and urban gar­dens

More Than Just Beau­ti­ful

Green facades and urban gar­dens offer not only aes­thet­ic ben­e­fits but also ener­getic ones. Plants on build­ing exte­ri­ors and rooftops can con­tribute to tem­per­a­ture reg­u­la­tion, thus reduc­ing the ener­gy con­sump­tion for heat­ing and cool­ing. Addi­tion­al­ly, bio­mass pro­duced in urban gar­dens can be used for ener­gy gen­er­a­tion, for exam­ple, through bio­gas plants.

Impact start­up 90green has the vision to use intel­li­gent Green­Tech solu­tions to cre­ate as much green space as pos­si­ble on as lit­tle land as nec­es­sary in our cities and urban areas and thus active­ly com­bat the caus­es and effects of cli­mate change. Com­bin­ing mod­u­lar green­ing ele­ments with a data-dri­ven dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion approach. Spe­cialised plant and envi­ron­men­tal sen­sors built into our mod­ules col­lect rel­e­vant data, which is enriched with real-time cli­mate data in our cloud envi­ron­ment. This allows plants to grow under ide­al con­di­tions, their eco­log­i­cal impact to be analysed based on data and resources to be saved.More infor­ma­tion at: www​.90green​.com

Solu­tion: Cit­i­zen Par­tic­i­pa­tion

Anoth­er key to the suc­cess of renew­able ener­gies in cities is cit­i­zen par­tic­i­pa­tion to spread these new tech­nolo­gies.

PLAN B is a coor­di­na­tion net­work that sup­ports peo­ple in real­is­ing good solu­tions with oth­er peo­ple from the city and mak­ing small con­tri­bu­tions to the big pic­ture — and big con­tri­bu­tions to our com­mon future. By 2030, Berlin will be safer, more social, more live­able — and cli­mate-neu­tral. That is the goal. PLAN B brings togeth­er peo­ple from dif­fer­ent organ­i­sa­tions, with dif­fer­ent social roles, exper­tise and skills. Any­one can join in and get involved. One of the focus projects is to equip Berlin with tens of thou­sands of bal­cony pow­er plants. That would be the break­through for the urban ener­gy tran­si­tion and the expan­sion of solar ener­gy in rent­ed flats, where over 84% of Berlin­ers live in. Each house­hold could save between 200–300 euros per year on fos­sil fuel elec­tric­i­ty and thus also on elec­tric­i­ty costs. And solar ener­gy would go viral and gen­er­ate so many copy­cat effects that the cli­mate tran­si­tion and #ener­gy­democ­ra­cy would become the new nor­mal. More Infos on: 2030​planb​.de

Con­clu­sion

Renew­able ener­gies in the city are a cen­tral build­ing block for a sus­tain­able future. Through inno­v­a­tive approach­es like rooftop solar sys­tems, bal­cony pow­er plants, ten­ant pow­er projects, or the rev­o­lu­tion­ary wind sail from we4everyone, urban spaces can make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the ener­gy tran­si­tion. It is up to us to sup­port and spread these tech­nolo­gies to achieve cli­mate goals and make our cities more liv­able.

By explor­ing and uti­liz­ing these new ways of gen­er­at­ing ener­gy, we cre­ate a sus­tain­able and liv­able envi­ron­ment for future gen­er­a­tions. The future of urban ener­gy sup­ply is green, inno­v­a­tive, and com­mu­ni­ty-dri­ven – let us embark on this path togeth­er.