[EXP] Wendland renewable energy strategy

Rural topic(s): Renewable energy and eco-housing

Date of writing: June 30, 2010

Author(s) of this page: Titus Bahner

Summary:

The district of Lüchow-Dannenberg, proudly called “Wendland” by its inhabitants, became a melting pot for all sorts of anti-nuclear movement groups who settled in the rural landscape, formed solidarity with local farmers, engaged in rural livelihoods and businesses, including the development of alternative energy systems.Besides individual solutions (organic local food, wood heating, solar warm water, photovoltaic) they jointly invested in 4 wind turbines. With the regional goal of converting to 100% renewable energy use, biogas production for electricity and communal heating systems by biogas and woodchips were developed. Germany’s first biogas fuel station opened here in 2008.

Text:

Regional background and project objectives

The district of Lüchow-Dannenberg, proudly called “Wendland” by its inhabitants, was the least densely populated area in former Western Germany. Situated on the Elbe River along the former Iron Curtain, it was designated in 1977 to be the site of a big nuclear waste dump. As a consequence, it became a melting pot for all sorts of anti-nuclear movement groups who settled in the rural landscape, formed solidarity with local farmers, engaged in rural livelihoods and businesses, including the development of alternative energy systems.

Project activities with respect to Sustainable Development

Besides individual solutions (organic local food, wood heating, solar warm water, photovoltaic) they jointly invested in 4 wind turbines. With the regional goal of converting to 100% renewable energy use, biogas production for electricity and communal heating systems by biogas and woodchips were developed. Germany’s first biogas fuel station opened here in 2008.

Some concrete examples:

Woodchip heating system, photovoltaic system in Dannenberg primary school: The primary school is entirely heated by renewable energy, namely by a woodchip heating system for basic load and an additional rape oil boiler for cold days. The woodchips are furnitured by farms from regional production. They may contain up to 20% humidity and can be harvested in the forests with simple technology. The rape oil also is produced regionally and has to meet a recently established DIN standard. The regional government has put the school’s large roof (as well as many other roofs of public buildings) to the disposal of a group of people to install solar heating modules and recently also photovoltaic modules there for free. A display inside the school building shows the energy harvested and the CO2 replaced by both the solar modules and the renewable heating.
Germany’s first Biogas Fuel Station in Jameln: The agricultural cooperative in Jameln, a central village in Wendland, built a 600 kW biogas plant run mainly on corn (maize) with addition of cow slurry from four large nearby milk producers. 90% of the biogas is conventionally turned into electricity, whereas 10% is purified to 98% methane content and transported via a 1 km pipeline to a nearby transit road where it is compressed to 250 bar and offered as car fuel. All CNG cars that run on compressed natural gas can be served without any technical problems. Since the station’s opening in 2007 many regional residents replaced their cars with CNG-converted cars. The demand is so high that the promised gas pressure at the station mostly cannot be reached. An additional compressor will soon be installed to sell a greater proportion of the produced biogas as car fuel.
Citizen-financed windturbines from Jeetzeler Berg: Local residents financed and built three 600 kW windturbines and recently an additional 1.500 kW turbine in a cooperative effort.
Volkfien biogas local heating network: Two farmers built a large (600 kW) biogas plant – same technology as in Jameln – and besides producing electricity use the produced heat to furnish hot water to the village’s 24 homes via a circular pipeline. Due to clever financing the residents didn’t have to pay anything for the connection technology to their existing heating and now receive the warmth to a considerably lower price than before. Their old heating system remained in place to be secure in case of technical problems.

Main results, lessons learned

“Wendland-Elbtalaue was one of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture’s model regions under the “Regionen – aktiv” programme and one of the EU’s “ALTENER” regions that strive for a 100 percent renewable energy supply. The waste depository is still under discussion.

Notes:

Source:

FS ERSG 2009 – field visits and interviews to :

Dannenberg: Mr. Schulz, Elbtalaue municipality

Jameln: Hans-Volker Marklewitz, Raiffeisen Agricultural Cooperative,

Jeetzeler berg: Daniela Weinand, ReEnergie Wendland, target GmbH

Volkfien: Burkhard Blank, biogas producer

Informations:

Scale of intervention : Regional

Keywords: renewable energy, solar energy, wood fuel, photovoltaic energy, wind energy, wooden biomass, local partnership, local community initiative, locally-based economy, organic farming

Places: Germany

Actors: multi-stakeholders, farmer, citizen, inhabitants, local authority

Methods: self-financing, promotion of local economic activity