Solar Village by Rolf Disch
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01.11.08
TreeHugger wants to live in Freiburg, which has solar flair and green, car free communities. We like Rolf Disch and his Heliotrop house, too. Now we can get it all in one package at the Solarsiedlung or solar village. It is built to Passivhaus standards and is Plus Energy (produces more energy than it needs)
We like how they get relatively high density and a lot of common space for gardens and play.
According to jonarisen in Greenlineblog, The layout of the project is based on solar orientation. Energy for the project is provided mostly by the sun, though in the case of electricity no onsite storage is provided so energy is fed into the grid and extracted as needed. Heat energy is generated by a local network of solar hot water evacuated-tubes located on the Sonnenschiff. The hot water is then used for heating water and the spaces.
Electricity is generated by “solar energy plants” or pv panels mounted on the housing units. The electricity produced is fed into the public grid and a profit is made because of the higher rates paid to solar energy producers. Any additional energy required in the winter months is provided by a wood-chip fuelled power station.
Disch uses all the new tricks but doesn't forget the oldest- use carefully designed overhangs to shade sunlight in the summer but let the lower winter sun in for passive heating.
::Das Sonnenschiff in Freiburg and ::Solarsiedlung via ::Greenline Blog
Wow ! That's great. Nice scale.
I wonder how strong the panels are to deal with snow and winds?
A couple of turbines here and there wouldn't hurt as well.
I wish I had that roof area.
vsk
The thing I really like about this development is its density, as Lloyd mentions. Too much focus is placed on having solar panels on roofs, which little regard for land use and the related transportation consequences. I cannot state the numbers at this point, but I suspect that typical low-density subdivisions running on solar power do not provide much benefit (if any improvement) over smartly but conventionally-powered homes. A truly integrated approach is necessary. This development appears to demonstrate that.
Impressive in all aspects. Very well thought out and done. Two thumbs up! I wish I had more thumbs, two sounds like such a low number. 100 thumbs up!
there´s windpowerplants all over germany, but never inside settlements. also freiburg (not frieburg) is the solar city of germany, because it´s in the area that gets the most sun (still less than new england). the windpower you´ll see at the coast and in the middle of germany where the first line of hills start.
They actually did a very beautiful job of incorporating the architecture with the technology. Well done! www.wannasmile.com
+1 on using the solar panels to shade the house for passive solar!
they mention selling power back, do they typically generate excess power, or try to break even for the year? Reason I ask, this would give good perspective to the panel size needed to be "zero energy" house.
This is even happening in poorer rural areas in the US:
http://www.ruraldevelopmentinc.org/
While we're not living in Germany, it was possible for us to use part of our mortgage to put pv up on the roof in the Netherlands. And considering that Germany is ages ahead of us in sustainable systems, I would think it is posssible there too.
What I know about the German system is that they get a pretty good price for all the solar electricity they put on the grid, so usually they will sell all solar electricity through one meter to the grid and buy back whatever they need for their household through a separate one.