Wildpoldsried Climate Action Plan
Region: Bayern, Germany
Implemented on: Municipal level
Target group: Energy stakeholders
Summary:
Since 1999, the 2.500-inhabitant-town of Wildpoldsried has an Environmental strategy fo-cussing on energy saving and production, sustainable building and water protection. Follow-ing its success, in 2010 the municipality adopted a climate plan. The objective is to generate 100% of the local energy demand from renewable sources by 2020.
Objectives:
- Producing more renewable energy than consuming on local level and reducing more CO2 than generating;
- Promoting innovative, energy efficient and environmentally friendly technologies.
Funding/Costs:
Total cost of investment into energy projects (private&public) is 24 Million €, returns on in-vestment are around 4 Million €/year in saved energy. Benefits for regional craftsmanship have not been estimated.
Results:
- In 2010, already 321% of the overall electricity requirement of the municipality was generated from renewable sources (wind, sun, water and biogas).
- 100% of the public buildings are heated by means of biomass.
- Beside a reduction of the energy consumption, the strategy of Wildpoldsried brought new activities in town. Some innovative enterprises moved to Wildpoldsried and tourism is improving. About 100 “energy-excursions” per year are organized by the town;
- Creation of about 140 new jobs.
- Some of the pilot projects of Wildpoldsried have since been copied many times by other municipalities.
Lessons learnt:
The most important and successful method in all the action is surely to win the public support for “Energy and Climate Protection” and motivate them to participate. The citizens choose rather to participate, when it is voluntarily, when connection to the energy services is not compulsory or when there are possibilities for them to invest and earn revenues from the projects, too. All individual projects have been carefully planned, calculated, and the citizens involved from the beginning.