Great opennes to new energy concepts
Adlershof as an energy efficient location
Regenerative energies here, self-sufficient buildings there. But what is it all costing, and how much is it really saving? And will the energy supply remain stable? What can I do – in the office, the laboratory or production to use resources responsibly? These are questions that a new energy concept for the Adlershof Technology Park is to find answers to. What is important from the very outset: the integration of all actors through information and codetermination.
An extensive energy concept is to reduce the needs at the Adlershof location. According to analyses by Berlin TU’s Center for Technology and Society (CTS), there is a high level of openness and motivation at Adlershof in continuing to make a name as an energy efficient, innovative location.
The planned new energy concept focuses on measures for greater energy efficiency and the utilisation of synergies between the location’s partners. “The measures it provides can be implemented only when there is acceptance on the various levels. These include investors, managing directors and building managers who do not want their smooth operations jeopardised,” explained Professor Martina Schäfer of the CTS. Also the employees are affected in part, she continued, so it becomes all the more important that everyone involved is integrated early, continuously and actively – it is only when they agree to the activities and their effective realisation that the concept can succeed: “Information and participation overcome inhibitions and raise consensus.
Everyone involved should be given the feeling that both their needs and their fears are taken seriously.” Help comes in the form of communication. In initial key steps, the CTS first presented the planned project in Adlershof and initiated a discussion on possible and planned strategies and measures for raising energy efficiency: with detailed interviews, a questionnaire campaign, a stakeholder exhibition and a planning cell whose findings were compiled into a citizens’ report. The result: Those surveyed want in future even more communication, cooperation and structures that continue to promote the subject of energy efficiency and make it easier to benefit mutually from positive experience and knowhow at the location.
The association behind the new energy concept goes by the name of “High Tech – Low Ex: Energy Efficiency Berlin-Adlershof 2020” and is made up of WISTA-MANAGEMENT GMBH, BTB Blockheizkraftwerksträger- und -betreibergesellschaft and the TU Berlin. As part of the
TU subproject for efficiency technologies at the Adlershof Science Campus, the CTS deals with issues of acceptance and participation. “According to our analyses, the location and the people working there are very open to energy efficiency measures,” concluded Schäfer. “This is not just about cost savings.”
The high level of motivation for this subject is also based in the need at Adlershof to continue making a name as an energy efficient, energy innovative location. Nevertheless: Actual decisions for or against certain measures, added Martina Schäfer, are always made in the tug of war between the expected benefits on the one side and the incurred costs and feared risks on the other. One especially important discovery for the acceptance and realisation of the new concept is to dispel fears of limited supply capacity.
By Petra Hannen for Adlershof Special
www.tu-berlin.de/ztg/menue/team/mitarbeiterinnen/schaefer_martina_prof_dr_dr/