House That BASF Will Heat

01.03.2010 — Analysis

The power engineering reform after which in 2020 the energy consumption in Russia should reduce by 40% compared to 2007 is being "run in" in Ekaterinburg. The German BASF and Siemens are already developing specific programmes and projects. The RusBusinessNews correspondent found out that by September 2010 the first building will be reconstructed in Ekaterinburg in accordance to BASF technologies. Specialists from Germany promise that energy consumption will be reduced by 73%. 

The research portion of the Ekaterinburg - Energy Efficient City project has begun in June 2009. For six months specialists from Germany have been assessing the potential for the Mid Urals Capital and as a result several promising spheres have been named. These include industry, power engineering and, of course, housing and services. The highest interest of the Germans to the services is explained, not to a small measure, by federal programmes for the reform in this sector which would considerably reduce spending of private investors and thus make the project most attractive.

According to specialists from RUDEA, the Russian-German Energy Agency, after the reconstruction of services facilities the amounts of energy consumed in this sphere can be reduced by 26%. It is worth a special mention, however, that not all ideas suggested by the Germans might be to the Urals taste. For instance, Thomas Haendel, the Board Chairman of RUDEA, suggested to think about the viability of the around-the-clock heating of buildings to the existing norms. According to him in the evenings when people go to bed there is no need in high temperature and the practices from Germany can be used whereby houses are only heated to 15-16 degrees. It is obvious that this approach will enable saving quite a lot of fuel. It is just as obvious that this will cause a lot of discontent among Russians who expect the temperature of at least 18-20 degrees.

This is why so far they are talking about more "classic" ways of energy saving. Use less of it, for instance. In order not to heat the outside the housing stock in Ekaterinburg as well as all over Russia must be modernized thoroughly. Walls and roofs of buildings have to be lined with thermal insulation materials and wooden window frames, the "sore spot" of the old housing have to be replaced by the state of the art double-glazing units.

According to Stephan Kohler, the Board Chairman of Deutsche Energie-Agentur GmbH (DENA), similar programmes have been in operation in Germany for a number of years and that not only housing but social facilities are reconstructed within them. Governmental support notwithstanding, the key resources come from private investors, mainly the building proprietors. The key advantages in this for them are the potential reduction of spending on heating and real growth of their real estate after the reconstruction. There are more than 370 energy efficient houses in Germany at the moment, including high-rise apartment buildings and schools. The oldest building which has undergone the reconstruction was built in 1750. Of course, if we take into account the attitudes of Ekaterinburg authorities to architectural landmarks more and more of which are erased from the face of the Earth, the German experience of working with old building might not be needed after all.

In the beginning, however, the end consumers will not see much difference in spending. It is true, energy consumption will be reduced. This saving, however, will be "balanced" by the spending on the modernisation. According to Leonid Alekseyev, the Deputy Director of the Housing and Services Department of the Ministry for Regional Development, the funding will be provided in accordance with the mixed scheme - each rouble of federal funding must be matched by one rouble from local authorities and further five roubles must come from private investors. Payback times will differ at different sites. For instance in the situation with the pilot project in Ekaterinburg - the building on Mira Str. - this time will be 10 years.

Specialists are promising not to limit their work by the housing stock only while this will be one of the core goals. Every part of the energy chain has to reviewed. Take heating, for instance, where about 50% of losses occurs not through the waste of heat through windows but through heating main pipelines. 30% of services networks in the Sverdlovsk Oblast are in catastrophic condition. In order to reduce the accident rate 10% of pipelines has to be replaced annually. According to the regional Ministry for Energy, Housing and Services, 12 billion roubles is needed to get the networks into acceptable condition. The volumes of pipes replaced are 10 times lower than that due to the lack of money.

It is clear today that the networks modernisation will take years of work and tens of billions of roubles. Nevertheless the German specialists are not going to give up. BASF, for instance, has technologies for thermal insulation of heating mains and they are planning to implement these in the Urals. This is just one of the elements for the modernisation of this sector. It is worth pointing out that this company rarely gets involved in the actual implementation of the work which means that as well as savings on the energy spending people in the Urals can expect to get another advantage of such cooperation, new jobs created in the construction industry that suffered, probably, more than any other sector.

After the Sverdlovsk Oblast the Germans are planning to go North, to the Tyumen Oblast, Ugra, and Yamal. According to Mr Haendel, with the support from the office of the Plenipotentiary Representative of the RF President contracts with other subjects of the Federation in the Urals Federal District may be signed in the nearest future. Even the main disadvantage of the northern regions, the harsh climate, will turn into advantage since the longer the heating season is the more savings we can expect when reducing energy consumption.

Aleksey Ostapov