Mainova AG was awarded the German Solar Prize - in the category of cities/municipalities, districts, municipal utilities - for its valuable contribution to the expansion of tenant electricity in urban areas. The German Solar Prize has been awarded by the European Association for Renewable Energies (Eurosolar) since 1994. Together with the NRW Energy Agency, the winners in eight categories were honored on September 14 in Gelsenkirchen.
"With the expansion of renewable energies in urban areas, Mainova is actively supporting climate protection. At the same time, for the first time, tenants are also given the opportunity to actively participate in the forward-looking transformation of the energy supply. This is because, unlike private homeowners, for a long time it was not possible for apartments to obtain solar power from their own roofs," explains Bodo Becker, Head of Operations at Mainova AG.
Tenant power projects achieve several goals at the same time: The solar power from one's own roof can be offered at a lower price than green power from the public grid, and the reduced feed-in and feed-out additionally relieves the strain on the grids. In addition, awareness of one's own energy consumption increases and gives residents the opportunity to adapt their usage behavior to energy production. In the long run, this leads to desired and necessary energy savings.
Mainova AG has been exploiting this potential since 2015 and has so far installed 225 solar plants on multi-family houses, which together save more than 2,000 tons of CO2 per year. With a total output of around five megawatts, they produce 4.8 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually. This is equivalent to the average demand of 2,000 households. 173 of these plants were promoted via the Green Electricity Label. They have a total output of 3,245 kWp.
Energy utilities that offer a Green Electricity certified green electricity tariff are required to invest a minimum amount per kilowatt hour sold in energy transition projects. Tenant power projects are a great way to put these subsidy amounts to good use. So far, more than five energy providers have implemented tenant electricity projects with subsidies from the Green Electricity Label.
Among others also Polarstern, which with its Tenant power project in the Weststadt Esslingen have created an exciting example of a climate-neutral urban neighborhood - more on this at our Energy Transition Forum on October 28 in Bonn.
Smart tenant power project - the Aktiv-Stadthaus in the heart of Frankfurt (Photo: Mainova AG).
Of course, electric cars are not neglected in this residential project (Photo: Mainova AG).
