Energieversorger auf dem Prüfstand : darum prüfe, wer sich (ewig) bindet ... ; Konzeptstudie "Versorger-Test"

Das Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Umwelt, Energie schlägt in Kooperation mit dem Freiburger Büro Ö-quadrat ein konkretes Verfahren vor, um Stromanbieter und ihre Unternehmensentwicklung anhand ökologischer, ökonomischer, sozialer und kultureller Kriterien einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung zu bewerten ("Versorger-Test"). Dabei wird der umfassende Anspruch verfolgt, - Verbraucher-Interessen gerecht zu werden, - die Transparenz der Angebote und Anbieter im liberalisierten Strommarkt zu erhöhen, - Stromkunden zum Stromwechsel zu positiv bewerteten Energieunternehmen und gleichzeitig - Stromanbieter zu einer nachhaltigen Unternehmensentwicklung zu animieren und - damit einen Beitrag zu einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung der Energiemärkte zu leisten. Somit greift der "Versorger-Test" die durch die Liberalisierung geschaffene Freiheit der Stromanbieter-Wahl auf. Er unterstützt die Konsumenten-Souveränität der Verbraucher. Gleichzeitig unterstützt er Energieunternehmen auf ihrem Weg zu einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung und ermöglicht ihnen, ihre ökologische Glaubwürdigkeit unter Beweis zu stellen und ihre Marktchancen entsprechend zu verbessern

Energieversorger auf dem Prüfstand: Drum prüfe, wer sich (ewig) bindet ...

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Transforming “The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)” Into a Lighthouse-Project of Sustainability

AbstractUNAM is the oldest and one of the most prestigious universities in the Americas. The main campus of the university is home of about 300 000 students and covers an area of about 4 square-kilometres in the south of Mexico City. UNAM is also one of the biggest electricity consumers in Mexico-City. More than 70 Million kWh electricity are consumed yearly, producing about 49 000 tons of CO2 emission. Within the paper we will show that this could be changed with a high financial and educational profit.As UNAM has no heating and only a few cooling systems, lighting is by far the biggest use of electricity. The existing lighting system is extremely inefficient while providing unsatisfactory illumination in some places. The UNEP Centre on Sustainable Production and Consumption (CSCP) together with Büro Ö-quadrat devised a project which demonstrates how UNAM can benefit from an upgrade to a highly efficient lighting system. What makes the project unique is that the results are not based on theoretical calculations but were corroborated by implementation results of a highly efficient lighting system in four different areas (a foyer, classrooms, a library and a workshop) and the measurement of the electricity savings. Within these four areas the average electricity saving was 84% and the combined pay-back time was 2.7 years. Based on the empirical results and an analysis of 10 UNAM-buildings a master plan was developed for the entire university campus. Here the objective was to establish the broad strategic principles for a successful lighting system upgrade, as well as the necessary budget and savings that could be achieved. The results demonstrate that an initial investment of US$14 million would result in electricity costs savings of US$ 68 million over the 20 year lifetime of the upgraded lighting system. About thirty per cent of the electricity consumed in UNAM today could be saved with a high profit on investment.In a second step we show that most of the remaining electricity consumption could be produced by solar energy. The Feed-in Tariff system in Germany has led to a high capacity of PV-production and lowered the cost for PV-systems: In May 2013 a 40kW PV system, including all parts for the mounting, can be bought in Europe for a price of about 800 Euro/kW. Assuming that on 2% of the UNAM-area PV-systems would be installed, these systems could produce about 23 GWh with lower costs compared to the electricity price UNAM has to pay.Combining the investment for efficient lighting and PV-systems, about 60% (or about 29 000 tons) of the CO2-emissions of UNAM could be saved with a high rate of return.Best of all: What would be a more convincing way to educate 60 000 students every year about sustainability than a practical example of highly efficient lighting system and powered by solar energy? UNAM could be a light house for many other universities and schools

Die Stabilisierung des Klimas: ein anderer Umgang mit Energie

Even though environmental catastrophes and climatic changes have become global, they possess specific social allocative effects which, as a rule, aggravate existing inequalities. Hence, it is necessary to distinguish clearly between those politically responsible and those affected. Only then will it be possible the map out the leeway available to energy politics and to introduce course adjustments overdue on both local and regional levels

Secondary school student participation in carbon footprint assessment for schools

More and more cities are setting themselves ambitious climate protection targets, including CO2 neutrality. Schools are important institutions of cities and therefore they have to play a central role in achieving this goal. With the investment backlog building up and pressure from the Friday for Future movement increasing, the Wuppertal Institute and Büro Ö-quadrat have initiated the project Schools4Future, aiming to support secondary schools to become climate-neutral. In cooperation with secondary school students and teachers, the project team evaluated the existing situation of the participating schools and developed GHG-balances and feasible climate protection concepts. For this purpose, an Excel-based carbon footprint (CF) assessment tool for schools has been developed which is freely available. The tool covers all important emission areas, including heating energy, electricity use, travel to and from schools, school trips, the school canteen and paper consumption. The students were found capable to conduct the CF assessment with the guidance of the teacher, information materials and support of the researchers. So far, six pilot schools have completed their CF assessment with emissions ranging between 335 and 944 kg CO2 per person. In this paper we present the tool and compare the CF assessment of some schools. We further elaborate on how the tool and project has increased the climate awareness and self-efficacy of students and even stimulated measures by the school board

Sustainable energy strategy for Iran

The book shows that the implementation of a sustainable energy strategy in Iran provides the opportunity for further economic and social development. In this context, the aim of the book is to provide some of the analyses needed to rethink the country’s energy strategy and to grasp the chances. The authors hope to make a contribution to the emerging and rapidly growing discussion on better energy alternatives and the respective opportunities for investment, innovation and modernization. The work presented in the book should provide ideas for such opportunities and create a vision of how this could contribute towards developing a more sustainable, efficient and prosperous future energy system for Iran. The book is based on long-term academic cooperation between Iranian researchers from several universities and the Iranian Energy Association and German researchers from the Wuppertal Institute, Büro Ö-quadrat and the University of Osnabrück. The book in hand is an important result of the collaboration. So its publication lends itself to taking stock of these twelve years of continued cooperation

The interaction of images and text during comprehension of garden-path sentences: is integration better than good enough?

One of the main goals of reading is to construct a discourse representation. However, when information in the discourse is confusing or ambiguous, readers are often not able to create a fluid, accurate understanding of the text. Decades of research on temporarily ambiguous garden-path sentences have given the field of psycholinguistics a comprehensive understanding of how readers process, and often misinterpret, garden-path sentences. Both online and offline data demonstrate that when reading garden-path sentences (e.g., As the guard and officer wrestled the thief that was fleeing fell down the stairs), readers may not arrive at the correct, syntactically-licensed interpretation (i.e., that the guard and officer are wrestling each other) despite apparent reanalysis. The garden-path sentence processing model claims that readers often parse sentences by developing only shallow representations of the structure, and thus never return from "down the garden path" to arrive at the correct, syntactically licensed interpretation (Ferreira, Ferraro, & Bailey, 2002; Ferreira & Patson, 2007). In this dissertation, I seek to test the bounds of the garden-path model of sentence processing by investigating contextual influences on language processing. Specifically, how are reading processes are affected by the presence of extralinguistic information (e.g., imagery) with garden-path sentences. If readers are able to properly make use of linguistic (words) and nonlinguistic (pictorial) information, does it help them avoid inaccurate interpretation? For means of comparison, a related question is the role of imagery on linguistic disambiguation for less proficient readers who might rely more on the nonlinguistic code (e.g., nonnative speakers). I approach the issue of visual and linguistic (multimedia) processing by investigating specifically whether or not nonnative speakers of English, compared to native speakers, rely differently on non-linguistic information to parse and understand ambiguous, garden-path sentences

Einsparkraftwerke auf Erfolgskurs

Die Krisen der internationalen Finanzmärkte waren 1998 noch nicht Realität, Atomkraft galt in Deutschland unter der Regierung Kohl immer noch als Zukunftsoption für die kommenden Jahrzehnte und für eine Bundespolitik in Richtung Energiewende war weit und breit kein gesellschaftlicher Konsens in Sicht. Dennoch gab es schon vor der Energiewende Projekte, die sich der Steigerung der Energieeffizienz verschrieben hatten. Mit kombinierten Einspar- und Solarkraftwerken, die an Schulen mit finanzieller Bürgerbeteiligungen entstehen, sollte der Weg zu einer umweltverträglichen Energieversorgung für vier Schulen in Nordrhein-Westfalen eingeschlagen werden. Wie der vorliegende Projektbericht zeigt, konnten die Ziele des Vorhabens erreicht werden: Steigerung der Endenergieeffizienz, verstärkte Nutzung erneuerbarer Energien und der Einsatz dezentraler Kraft-Wärme-Kopplung

Erfolgreiche energetische Gebäudesanierung an Schulen : das Bürger-Contracting-Modell in "Solar&Spar"-Projekten in Nordrhein-Westfalen

Energieeinsparung ist angesagt - auch in öffentlichen Gebäuden. Das größte Problem für eine Umsetzung des vernünftigen Gedankens stellt zumeist der öffentliche Haushalt dar, denn eine energetische Sanierung will finanziert sein und die Kassen sind leer. Für mehrere Schulgebäude in Nordrhein-Westfalen wird seit einigen Jahren mit Erfolg ein Finanzierungsmodell angewandt, das privates Kapital einsetzt. Interessierte Bürgerinnen und Bürger investieren in Solar- und Sparmaßnahmen und erhalten im Verlauf der Projektlaufzeit über die realisierten Energiekosteneinsparungen ihr Kapital (plus Rendite) zurück. Die erfolgreichen "Solar&Spar"-Pilotprojekte des Wuppertal Instituts zeigen inzwischen, dass der Modellversuch praxistauglich ist