CIPRA

“Everybody really wants to contribute!”

The seven best projects received an award from CIPRA on 6 November 2008,  among all those that participated in the cc.alps competition. The Allgäu municipality of Wildpoldsried won one of the three main awards for its activities in the field of energy efficiency. Andrea Skiba, from the cc.alps Team, talked about this achievement with Arno Zengerle, Bürgermeister (Mayor) of Wildpoldsried.

First the cc.alps award, now the 2009 German Solar Award (Deutscher Solarpreis) – How does the municipality of Wildpoldsried manage to achieve so many acknowledgments?

We are very much ahead in the field of production of renewable energy and energy saving in the area of wood construction as well as in the field of water protection. We have also reached an excellent level in the European Energy Award and we are working to further improve it.

What have you done with the money you received from the cc.alps award?

We would use the money as a basis for an experimental system to plant fast growing wood. This experimental station would analyse the effects of sludge fertilizers on the growth behaviour of fast growing energy wood and on soil quality. We would like to share the whole project with a secondary school, in order to obtain long-term information. We already have a sludge processing plant, but we want to take a step further and prove with the help of an experimental system that an ecological circle can also be achieved in the field of sludge.

Do such awards help convince your neighbours to do the same as you are doing?

Maybe not exactly your nearby neighbours, but many other municipalities. Mayors come and visit me with their local councils. This exchange has huge effects, since the things that we make are no longer visions but have been implemented and are all profitable.

Are there also enviers? Those who say, Wildpoldsried did not really deserve all this?

Of course, I can easily imagine that there may be people who say “Why Wildpoldsrieder again?“. But at the award giving ceremonies we actually meet always the same municipalities and we understand each other very well. These are all people who are on the same line as us. We exchange ideas, everybody learns from the others. It is important that especially these energy municipalities take something forward.

Was it difficult in the beginning to convince the population of Wildpoldsried to share your visions?

Actually, it is not just “my” vision. Since the early 1990s we have had ten people who have dealt with this issue. To say the least, the population was open-minded from the very beginning  about these ideas. Now the situation is such that everyone wants to contribute somehow. At the moment it’s a question of simply changing their own heating pump with a highly efficient pump and therefore save 80 percent electricity. Or connecting to the town heating or installing a solar system on the roof. Everybody really wants to contribute somewhere.

By 2020 you would like to cover the whole energy need of the site by means of renewable energies? Is this feasible?

No problem, this is feasible. At the moment, therefore at the end of  2008, we already produce 285 % of our whole electricity need by means of renewable sources. We expect therefore that in 2 years we will produce 500 % of our electricity consumption by means of renewable sources. We produce a high amount, but we cannot quantify it yet. It should not be ruled out that we can reach our objective in two years.

What would you recommend to other mayors who want to follow the same path?

Be informed. There are now some energy municipalities, about which on the Internet it is possible to see everything that they have done. Begin with small measures and take them successfully to an end. Then act as a model with your own buildings, with respect to energy efficiency and production of renewable energy. Set up an energy team and as time goes by it will be taken for granted.