What is innovative about this project?

  • Project planning and management:  Delivering SME-friendly, innovation and partnership procurement.
  • Technical: Ensuring energy efficiency at district-level by combining different sources of energy.
  • Technical: Exploration of projects’ aggregation.

In its pilot phase, the project aggregated separate district-level projects scattered across the Bottrop municipality in Germany. An overarching masterplan was the mechanism of aggregation, which aimed to reduce CO2 emissions by 50% in 2030. A wide range of stakeholders took part in delivering the masterplan, including policymakers, citizens, and counted with the interest of innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), such as Technoboxx GmbH from the metal processing industry and Emschergenossenschaft, which established the world’s first hybrid power plant from sewage treatment.

Local Partnership

  • Company: Innovation City Management GmbH (ICM)
  • Municipality: City of Bottrop
  • Housing provider: –
  • Other: Initiativkreis Ruhr, Credit Institution for Reconstruction

The InnovationCity Ruhr competition was introduced in 2009 by the regional entity known as Initiativkreis Ruhr, which is made up of private businesses and other local organisations. The specific goal was to test long-term strategies to reduce the CO2 emissions in the pilot area with 70.000 inhabitants by 50% by 2020. The city of Bottrop was chosen in a multi-stage selection process among a group of 16 applicant cities and towns, after having their participatory governance plan for a low-carbon transition approach approved. In this context, a new entity, entitled Innovation City Management GmbH (ICM), was established by the local administration to oversee the projects. ICM collaborated with the municipality of Bottrop, energy providers, politicians, SMEs as well as citizens and schools. They adopted a bottom-up approach by offering these stakeholders a channel where to express their ideas and advance suggestions for the project. The pilot area of the project included the city centre as well as the districts of Batenbrock, Boy, Lehmkuhle, Ebel, Welheimer Mark and parts of Welheim. Each of these had their own office and manager. One of the reasons for this governance model was to encourage the engagement of local stakeholders.
Once the pilot project was concluded, ICM has since offered consultations to other cities in the Ruhr and around Germany that would like to develop a similar strategy. For cities, ICM services is reimbursable (75%) by the German Credit Institution for Reconstruction.

Key Facts

  • Year of construction: Mixed (mid-late 20th century and early 21st century)
  • Renovation period: 2010 masterplan, interventions carried out continuously from 2013 to 2020
  • Area of intervention (m²): not applicable, aggregated projects
  • Number of dwellings (before/after): same before and after. 3657 residential buildings were renovated.
  • Housing typology: multi-apartment buildings, single-family  homes, semi-detached homes, row houses
  • Housing tenure:  multi-ownership: owner-occupied, private rental housing, public rental housing, cooperative housing, social (non-for-profit) rental housing
  • Number of residents: 3954
  • Shared facilities: Solar panel playgrounds in schools where children can produce energy when jumping on the panels and they can battle with other schools that have the same technology, parks, and plants on buildings and the wall of the parking lot. Tree benches with solar plants where people can charge their phones.

Financial information

  • Funding sources: the pilot project / masterplan in Bottrop was funded by European Union Regional Development Funds (ERDF) between 2010 and 2020. After the pilot phase, the German federal state, the North Rhine-Westphalia government, the City of Bottrop and Initiativkreis Ruhr have taken up projects sponsorship. A number of projects also benefit from private investments and research grants. After 2010, ICM found a new owner (“Green Zero”) to be able to continue its operations.
  • Total cost of renovation (€): €2.7 million modernization funding triggered a total investment of more than €20 million.
  • Subsidies received (€): €2.7 million
  • Rent before and after renovation (€/month): remained unaltered (rent plus energy bills).
  • Energy bill (€/month): decreased

Context

Bottrop, a typical industrial town located in the northern Ruhr district (North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany), has a population of 117,000 residents. Its demographics have been influenced by coal mining for more than 160 years, and a large number of inhabitants have low income (around 18.000€ per year). The city was home to Germany’s last coal mine, which remained operational until 2018 and was closed definitively in 2020.

Goals

  • Renovate the main building structures with minimal investment as a new business model for housing renovation in the Netherlands.
  • Open up new ways to live, to offer new typologies by combining several flats into one, by making vertical and horizontal connections.
  • Improve the perception of safety in the area.
  • Achieve a social mix in an attractive and varied housing stock.
  • Overcome the stigma associated to the ‘ghetto’, while preserving its cultural heritage and legacy.

Interventions

  • The city implemented around 300 individual projects and achieved a modernization rate of over 3%, compared to the national average of 0.8%. As an aggregated project, a number of interventions took place in the frame of several sub-projects. Some of those interventions involved:
    • Insulation of building shells with diverse materials, including vacuum insulation.
    • Installation of automated building ventilation.
    • Substitution of windows with triple glazed models and thermal decoupling of balconies.
    • Installation of solar panels on roofs and façade. The PVs were connected to an electricity storage that enabled the charging for electric vehicles.
    • Installation of SmartHome technology for complete building control.
    • Installation of underfloor heating and heat pumps (solar and geothermal) with low flow-through storage tank.
    • Construction of translucent wall systems with sound insulation properties.
    • Installation of a wastewater heat recovery system.
  • Interventions carried out by SMEs:
    • Technoboxx GmbH installed photovoltaic plants in 2011, which supply energy for the metal production processes such as welding, rolling or turning. Almost 300 modules with a total output of 70,000 watts (equivalent to 70 kWp) and an energy quantity of around 60,000 kWh/year generate more electricity than Technoboxx GmbH consumes on a roof area of 1,500 square meters. The photovoltaic system with an output of 70 kWp was supplemented in 2016 with a vanadium redox flow battery storage system as part of a research project.
    • Emschergenossenschaft developed the first sewage that is a “hybrid power plant”. This means that sewage sludge becomes fuel, sewage gas becomes electricity or usable gas for vehicles. In addition, hydrogen is produced in a large model experiment, which is led via a pipeline directly to the school center, where it is converted into electricity and heat.
    • Organisation of activities to foster public participation. A total of 137 events were organised with more than 11350 attendees. The most common and participated were the free consultations with energy experts open to private citizens and housing providers.

Impact

  • The project achieved CO2 reduction as intended. From 2010 to 2020, emissions from residential buildings decreased by 47% in Bottrop, compared to the 19% decrease at the federal level. In the industry sector, CO2 emissions decreased by 56% in Bottrop, while the decrease at federal level amounts to 5.3%. In 2020, CO2 emissions per capita (excluding the transport sector) in Bottrop were 2.44 metric tons per year, compared to 6.11 t/a nationwide.
  • The city’s focus on energy renovation had a tangible impact. Over 3,600 residential buildings were renovated, which is about 36% of the total stock. With an annual energy renovation rate of 3.3%, it is estimated that on average 3.3% of residential buildings are being partially or completely
    renovated in terms of energy every year. These efforts were also able to trigger investments worth over 20 million €, with 2.7 million € in renovation funding.
  • InnovationCity Ruhr has been successful in engaging the local community. Over 11,000 people participated in 437 events and over 3,900 energy consultations were conducted by the end of 2020, reaching more than 30% of all individual homeowners. The population were involved and their contributions taken into consideration through due process. Their efforts also paid off as citizens are saving on their energy costs.
  • The city’s success in sustainability and energy efficiency has made this project a blueprint for other cities in the Ruhr region and elsewhere. The efforts have also had a positive impact on employment, with an increase of approximately 300 jobs over the entire period.

Advice to future “Lighthouse Districts”

  • Organise open consultations for residents, with the collaboration of energy experts. The process of reaching out to homeowners was challenging; especially in multi-ownership building blocks. In addition, 18 office quarters were established in each district as information points for homeowners.
  • Ensure multi-level political backing is secured. Political involvement is needed to overcome obstacles that obstruct project delivery. It is key to closely collaborate with local and national level decision-makers to work together for improving the regulatory framework of the renovation – one that facilitates instead of hindering renewable energy uptake and the distribution of the economic benefits thereof.