The Cologne-based TÜV Rheinland headquarters is revitalizing its approximately 100,000 square meter business park with ten buildings in Poll. The management of TÜV Rheinland Immobiliengesellschaft mbH & Co. KG has developed an innovative concept with the engineering experts from Drees & Sommer as energy designer, building physicist and TGA planner: In future, there should only be one energy center. All buildings in the property are supplied with heat and cooling via the power grid of the new energy center. For heat supply, hybrid energy sources are used. These consist of the renewable raw material wood, a wood pellet boiler plant, as well as the fossil energy natural gas, gas condensing boilers and an integrated combined heat and power plant. The cold is generated by free-cooling, high-efficiency compression machines and absorption chillers. This can save 30 percent of primary energy compared to today. In addition, CO2 emissions will be reduced by more than 30 percent. The overall concept is modular in design and adaptable for the future.

n times of energy transition and scarce resources, the architectural concept of Concrete Apartments Cologne is based on the requirements of the future - it is designed as an energy-saving passive house. This contains • a 26 cm thick external insulation made of rock wool, • triple glazed windows, • optimum recovery of radiated heat from residents and household appliances, • a ventilation system with a constant base temperature of 20 ° C - summer and winter - as well as • a digital control system that directs the use of luminaires and large consumers. Only those who like it even warmer must turn on the heating controller. All rooms are equipped with presence detectors, which automatically switch off lamps, for example, when not in use - this also saves energy. Of course, residents can also make the scheme manually. The energy and heat for the Boarding House creates its own, energy-efficient combined heat and power plant. State-of-the-art technology is also used here: surplus electricity is optionally fed into the public grid or used for the charging station for electric vehicles in the courtyard.

As well as energy-saving lighting, Smart Home is an important building block for an energy-efficient and comfortable future. With smart homes and smart meters in the network, homeowners and store owners can reduce their electricity and heating costs by an average of 7%! Add to that the great comfort of making the apartment burglar-proof and controlling almost every aspect of heating, electricity or security in the building. So you can control from your smartphone whether the stove is still on at home, a window has been left open, the heating is running at full speed or the light is on. In addition, before the house is on fire, modern, networked smoke detectors report any alarm directly to the owner's smartphone. It can automatically be initiated various steps, such. B. that the fire department is called. In order to test some scenarios and saving opportunities in everyday life and to make known the possibilities offered by these modern technologies, Smart Home applications were installed on the Klimastraße in nine private apartments of the Nippes Tower and in the bookstore Neusser Straße. This was financed by the project Klimastraße or the company RocketHome . In addition, it is planned to equip the entire climate road with smart meters from RheinEnergie.

Along the Klimastraße, the street lighting was replaced by modern and elegant LED street lamps by the end of January 2014. From now on, about 55% energy and about 5 tons of CO2 are saved. The lighting in the shops and businesses on the Klimastraße is on all business days up to 12 hours on. Therefore, all owners were asked by the project to participate in a retrofit campaign on LED lighting. Even businesses and businesses from Cologne and the surrounding area of ​​Cologne have become aware of this campaign on the Klimastraße. In a temporary action, these are supported by small grants from the project SmartCity Cologne to equip their business premises with LED lighting.

The energy transition presents network operators and energy providers with particular challenges. Both have to deal with an increasing share of electricity from renewable sources in the electricity grid. Wind turbines and photovoltaic systems produce electricity, however, depending on the weather and therefore fluctuating. For a secure supply, it is necessary that electricity production and consumption are always balanced as much as possible. In order for this to succeed, utilities and network operators must always know where and in what quantity energy is generated and consumed. Only then can production and consumption be optimally coordinated. However, continuous metering is not possible with today's metering technology.The solution to the problem is smart metering. In the future, so-called "smart metering systems" will transfer consumption data to grid operators and energy providers. This ensures that they can optimally control the network at any time. The technology is mainly used in households and businesses with high annual consumption.Consumers can access the data at any time. The additional transparency helps them to further increase their energy efficiency and thereby reduce costs. New services provided by energy suppliers are intended to reinforce the positive effects.

District heating is one of the key pillars of our sustainable energy action plan. This plan has been decided by the local parliament in 2008 and renewed in 2015. Our first priority is to cut in half the total energy demand of the city until 2050 and then cover the rest with renewable energy and/or waste heat. To use large amounts of waste heat (e.g. from a waste incineration plant, industry, datacentres …) you need a distribution system, because it is not useable only locally. This is why we want to increase the share of district heating in the city. For the future we see a district heating system which will be “open source technology” – everyone can use the heat and also be a prosumer, delivering surplus energy, e.g. from a solar – thermal plant, to the system. There will not be any longer central DH-Stations but smaller plants and the use of all waste heat sources we can get.

Apartimentum in Hamburg will be the smartest home in Europe with  44 apartments, all rented for a flat-rate, including all services – powered by Cisco IP technology.