FRANKFURT Platform
Background
| Construction style | Company Group total | Nassausiche Heimstaette | Wohnstadt |
| Terraced/Semi Detached Houses / etc. | 2.217 |
1.105 |
1.112 |
| Rowed houses |
5.779 |
3.295 |
2.484 |
| Perimeter block development |
394 |
283 |
111 |
| High-rised blocks > 6 floors |
115 |
82 |
33 |
| Total |
8.505 |
4.765 |
3.740 |
| Type of heating |
Company Group total |
Nassausiche Heimstaette | Wohnstadt |
| Very good condition, Central heating aged less 10 years | 2.557 |
1.242 |
1.315 |
| Good condition, Central heating or individual gas fuel heating with small wasting |
4.276 | 2.070 |
2.206 |
| Substandard, single heating with gas or electrical night storage heaters, high economic amount |
1.442 |
1.317 |
125 |
| Poor, individual oil or coal stoves, unheated rooms |
230 |
136 |
94 |
Video material about the project
Extended version with regard to the platform implemented in Frankfurt, the material is only available in German. General video footage of SAVE@Work4Home is available here.
Former situation of energy management by the tenant
In former times, the tenant had individual heating. This caused high costs and/or poor quality of life. The temperature in the flats was individual but humidity and mildew was common. Tenants had to provide their own coal or oil. To improve the quality of the flats they were modernized within the last decade by modern, efficient communal heating systems which provide low energy consumption and less effort in "operating" them.
Reasons and motivation for the social housing organisation
The major shareholder of Nassauische Heimstätte is the State of Hesse.. The federal Republic of Germany is supporting a lot of activities to help save the environment and to reduce CO2 emissions. To achieve these targets activities were broken down to companies owned by states and communities.
The management of NH provided a strategy for next 10 years work plan to the supervisory board. One of the major columns in this is a chapter about energy saving. An interdisciplinary internal team created this part. This includes economic, ecological and technical issues but also includes initiatives to support tenants to save energy.
NH is driven by several issues to offer methods and opportunities to the tenant to save energy.
This could cause the tenant to save money and improve lifestyle. Alternatively, it could offer the possibility of increasing the basic rental fee in the future.
On the other hand, the shareholders from public government organisations promised to participate in public climate protection contracts being signed on an EU basis. This was understood to mean participation in efforts to save energy and reduce consumption.
Constraints on implementation of the proposed service
In case of collective heating, some constraints are that German laws and regulations say that only half of the energy costs can be billed directly to the tenant. The other half of the cost is billed as an average to all participants.
Giving internet access to the tenants is now easier and less costly but attitudes to using it can be the major problem. Persuading social housing tenants to change their behaviour to save energy is not always easy.
