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FT REPORT - GERMANY 2007: South-western city offers taste of green future
By Hugh Williamson, Financial Times
Published: Dec 04, 2007


For many people in Germany and beyond, Freiburg stands as a vision for a more environment-friendly future. The picturesque city of 200,000 people in Germany's south-west is a magnet for visitors interested in finding practical answers to the questions posed by climate change, says Dieter Salomon, the city's mayor.

"We have delegations from Japan, South Korea, India and elsewhere - and interest is growing all the time," says Mr Salomon, whose own background reveals how environmentally conscious Freiburg is. Elected in 2002, he was the first mayor of a large German city to come from the small Green Party.

Freiburg has two reasons for attention being focused on its growing use of renewable energy. First, companies and research agencies located in Freiburg were - and remain - pioneers in developing solar energy. Second, the city itself has become a showcase for housing and local transport projects that stress energy conservation rather than the heavy use of cars and non-renewables such as oil and gas.

In addition to its international guests, German policy-makers are particularly interested in Freiburg because of the wider challenges Berlin has set itself to meet global climate-change targets.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has this year led efforts within the European Union and the G8 group of rich countries to define clear targets on climate change. As a result, in August her coalition agreed to raise the share that renewable energies contribute to Germany's electricity production to 25-30 per cent by 2020.

The current share of around 14 per cent is much higher than most other industrialised countries, but it remains a very tough challenge to double this within 13 years, according to energy experts. But Freiburg could be a test-bed for achieving that goal.

Solar Fabrik, one of the oldest solar energy companies in the recent wave of solar start-ups, is a good example. Located in its airy, purpose-built zero emissions headquarters on the outskirts of the city, the solar panels manufacturer expects to double turnover this year to around €140m.

"We have to expand so fast to keep up with demand, which is rocketing," says Martin Schlenk, head of investor relations. Set up in 1996 when solar energy was still, as he puts it, a "woolly jumper and sandals issue", the company experienced a real boom in 2004 when the Social Democrat-Green national government of the time introduced legislation in effect subsidising the production of solar energy.

This led to a rapid expansion in use of solar panels, but also to an acute shortage of silicon, the key ingredient in the energy generation process. As a result - in a trend now also pursued by other German solar companies - Solar Fabrik internationalised its business by building alliances with companies in India, Malaysia and Singapore to produce and process silicon.

This has enabled the company to keep up with another key trend: rising exports to sunnier countries by German solar energy companies. "Around 30 per cent of our solar modules are exported, and we plan to reach 50 per cent by 2009," Mr Schlenk says.

Highly visible solar panels - and the ubiquity of bicycles and cycle paths - are among the trademarks of Freiburg. Even in winter the large bicycle parking area opposite the railway station is overflowing, and a dense network of buses and trams means that many people live without a car.

This is especially true in Vauban, a futuristic housing estate of 5,000 people in southern Freiburg where architects, city planners and environment experts have been able to test new ways of low-energy living.

Only about 90 people per 1,000 regularly use a car in Vauban, compared with the 490 on average across Germany, says Roland Veith, the city council's representative in the district.

The rows of individually designed houses include many "passive" buildings, where solar power, good insulation and water conservation combine to cut energy use to a fraction of that in normal homes. A power station fuelled by wood from the nearby Black Forest provides some of the district's energy.

Back in the town hall, Mr Salomon stresses that Freiburg is far from perfect, and points to challenges that are relevant across Germany. "We need the equivalent of a production line of passive houses," he says, indicating that most homes still use conventional technologies.

There are other challenges for Freiburg, too. The region's prosperity means wages and living costs are high, which means areas with lower wages are increasingly attractive to renewable energy companies.

And the growth of both solar and wind power - also of growing importance around Freiburg - both depend on generous state subsidies, which are vulnerable to changes in the political winds.

The mayor is sure, however, ratcheting up the climate change debate means Freiburg, and probably Germany, are on the right path.

"People used to think our environmental ideas were crazy," he says. "Now they are mainstream."