The city council group Freie Wähler and FÜR Karlsruhe present a position paper on the city’s energy master plan. The position paper addresses the draft energy master plan of the city of Karlsruhe and formulates concrete proposals and recommendations to achieve a technology-neutral and CO2-neutral energy supply. The group refers to future technologies and energy sources such as hydrogen.
Municipal districts and large district towns in Baden-Württemberg are obliged to draw up a municipal heating plan as a planning instrument by the end of 2023. This heat plan will present measures to make the district or city climate-neutral by 2040. The City of Karlsruhe has decided to draw up an energy master plan that covers the electricity sector as well as the heating sector in order to meet the requirements of the Climate Protection Act. The draft of the energy master plan is currently available and is due to be approved by the municipal council at the end of November 2023.
Despite the large scope of the city’s energy master plan, the city council group of Freie Wähler and FÜR Karlsruhe has identified a number of points of criticism and misconceptions. These are to be corrected through concrete recommendations and solutions in the position paper in order to create comprehensive, realistic and sustainable solutions for the future energy supply and to achieve the climate targets by 2040 at the latest – and preferably by 2035.
“In our position paper, we want to put forward for debate serious and scientific proposals that we believe are missing from the city administration’s energy master plan. It is important to us not only to criticize the city’s plans, but also to propose constructive measures that will make our city climate-friendly and at the same time economical and realistic,” says parliamentary group leader Friedemann Kalmbach about the aims of the position paper.
The fundamental point of criticism in the position paper is that the city’s energy master plan does not contain any clear statements on implementation, i.e. a timetable for the measures and tests as well as planned implementation of the overall strategy. A target-oriented timetable with concrete measures would make the work of those responsible for implementing the measures easier.
In addition, the city administration’s measures are based on unrealistic assumptions: The assumption of a refurbishment rate of 4.8 % – currently it is 1 % in Karlsruhe – lacks funding as well as sufficient skilled workers and tradespeople.
The one-sided focus on district heating in the energy master plan is also inadequate: Stadtwerke Karlsruhe’s monopoly position with regard to the district heating supply leads to a worrying lack of alternatives when it comes to choosing a supplier. In contrast to electricity, gas and oil
, consumers in Karlsruhe would not be able to choose their supplier freely. The current supply structures are also not sufficient to meet the needs of the city as a whole. A renewed dependence on energy supplies should be avoided after the experience with Russian oil and natural gas.
To counteract this, the city council group argues in its position paper for technological openness and increased use of the future technology of hydrogen as an additional energy source. The city council group sees heat pumps, district heating networks and electricity supply influenced by electromobility as elementary building blocks of a climate-neutral energy supply. However, this also includes rapid development and research in the hydrogen economy. The position paper describes the future possibilities of the hydrogen economy for the city of Karlsruhe for the energy and heating transition.
The city council group considers the following measures to be essential solutions:
- Inclusion of hydrogen network expansion areas and notification of requirements up to 2025, as well as an associated Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the network operator.
- Cost analysis and comparison of possible heating systems at the respective location and building-specific presentation for end users.
- Roadmap with timescales for reviews and measures in the energy master plan and shorter intervals for updating.
- Plan future districts based on the model of project districts in the energy and wastewater sector.
The complete position paper of the city council group Freie Wähler and FÜR Karlsruhe will be sent to all city council groups in Karlsruhe, to the relevant departments of the city administration and to research and educational institutions. The position paper can be viewed in digital form on the homepage of the Freie Wähler and FÜR Karlsruhe city council group.
