The Federal Ministry of Education and Research has approved the research project "OLE - Organization of Rural Energy Concepts", in which the Chair of Building Physics is involved together with several partners. The overall objective of the project is to enable municipal decision-makers in rural, structurally weak communities to initiate and implement innovative energy concepts within the framework of intra- and inter-municipal cooperation. This should enable them to take a more active role in the provision and management of their resources. Models will be developed for reorganizing cross-sectoral cooperation in the provision of public services in order to use energy more efficiently and generate regional added value. The technical and institutional prerequisites for such models will be systematically surveyed and described. In addition, a methodology for the selection of suitable concepts and models in specific areas of consideration will be developed and used to create handouts for concrete implementation in other municipalities. 

Based on the objectives, the following main results are envisaged:

• Concepts for the implementation and reorganization of rural energy production, conversion, storage and, if necessary, distribution against the background of the coupling of the waste, wastewater and agricultural sectors with the aim of increasing regional value creation through local circular economy as well as energy and resource efficiency,
• Identification and evaluation of necessary changes in organizational structures between different sectors of the general interest and proposals for the adaptation of the overarching institutional framework,
• Proposals for standardization in municipal practice, and
• Procedure for transferability of the results to other municipalities.

The elaboration and verification of these results is based on the model area of rural municipality "Am Ettersberg", which shows essential characteristics of the situation in rural, structurally weak areas in Germany.

Project partners: 

• Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (Chair of Urban Water Management - Project Management, Chair of Infrastructure Economics and Management, Chair of Building Physics). 
• Rural municipality Am Ettersberg
• Wastewater association Nordkreis Weimar
• Agricultural cooperative Großobringen eG (associated)

Project "OLE - Organization of Rural Energy Concepts

Subproject 1: Overcoming organizational and legal obstacles in inter- and intra-communal cooperation of different sectors

Contact: Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Ing. Andrea Lück

Faculty of Civil Engineering, Bauhaus-Institute for future Infrastructure Systems (b.is), Chair of Urban Water Management

Duration: July 1^st, 2021 until June 30^th, 2023

Funded by: BMBF

Funding amount: 386,285.21 EUR