Berlin shoots for energy efficiency leadership

BERLIN, Aug. 28 (UPI) -- The city of Berlin wants to become a leader in energy efficiency and climate protection by pushing the use of combined heat and power generation.

In Berlin, CHP -- the use of a power station to simultaneously and efficiently generate both electricity and heat -- is old hat. As early as 1926, a CHP plant was heating City Hall in the western district of Charlottenburg. Today, 42 percent of the electricity consumed in Berlin is generated in CHP plants, which puts Berlin at the top spot for all German cities -- the federal average stands at only 13 percent. Moreover, a significant share of the heat consumed in Berlin comes from CHP plants.

Yet Berlin wants even more.

Officials here have launched an initiative -- dubbed "CHP Model City Berlin" -- that aims to boost the share of CHP to 60 percent in 2020. It's an extremely ambitious goal, but officials say it's a realistic one.

"We have an existing CHP infrastructure like almost no other city in the world," Katrin Lompscher, the Berlin senator tasked with environmental questions, said at the initiative's unveiling Wednesday in Berlin. "The capital already is a research and production site for innovative CHP technology."

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who oversees the initiative, said it will become an example that cities in Germany and all over the world can follow.

The German government has given the starting signal for CHP Model City Berlin. In June it decided to allocate more funds for CHP generation, aiming to double the share of CHP in Germany's electricity mix from 13 percent to 25 percent by 2020. CHP is now part of Germany's strategy to become more energy-efficient and, also by 2020, to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent compared with 1990 levels.

In contrast to conventional power plants, which emit the heat created during electricity generation into the environment through cooling towers, flue gas or other means, CHP plants capture the heat to warm factories and homes very close to the plant or, through a pipe system, some miles away.

CHP plants, which are fired by coal, gas or biomass, can reach production efficiency levels of close to 90 percent, compared with a maximum of 55 percent for conventional plants. This means that less fuel needs to be consumed to produce the same amount of energy, resulting in less carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. That's why CHP can help Berlin achieve its own goals.

In line with federal targets, the city aims to significantly reduce its carbon dioxide footprint, which in 2005 stood at 21.9 million tons.

By 2020 the city wants to reach 40 percent below 1990 levels. This means it has to cut each year roughly 290,000 tons of carbon dioxide -- the carbon footprint of roughly 50,000 people.

"The initiative here in Berlin is a chance to show the world how the big cities may in the future deal with energy efficiency," Michael Mueller, a senior official in the German Environment Ministry, said Wednesday at the same event.

The initiative, which has a budget of roughly $1.5 million, is financed by European Union and state funds, as well as money from Swedish state-owned energy company Vattenfall Europe (which runs 13 CHP plants in Berlin) and Gasag, the city's main gas provider.

Its main PR tools are large posters -- for example, one depicting an ice skater running on electric irons instead of skates -- that will be placed all over the city to raise awareness among the Berlin public that CHP is "using resources twofold." The initiative also includes small-scale funding programs for model micro CHP plants, and events that target decision-makers in industry and homebuilding.

"We want to make CHP more well-known," Lompscher said.

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