111 apartments, 16 buildings, 4 different Energiesprong concepts – the largest Energiesprong real-life laboratory in Germany is currently underway in Mönchengladbach.
On behalf of LEG, an existing residential complex will be transformed into a Net Zero district by the middle of next year. The 1956 two-story apartment buildings, comprising four to six apartments, have a below-average energy rating with an H energy efficiency classification and are, therefore, typical of many post-war buildings in Germany. The retrofit work will be carried out while the building is still inhabited, meaning that the tenants will not have to move out for the duration of the modernisation.
With B&O, ecoworks, Fischbach and Saint-Gobain, LEG has been able to work with experienced total solution providers as their construction partners. Each company is responsible for a quarter of the buildings as the general contractor, and they will implement different technologies and approaches in their respective buildings. Saint-Gobain was the first company to begin implementing its solution in Mönchengladbach-Hardt, starting at the beginning of August this year. They were followed by B&O in September, ecoworks in October and Fischbach in November, with each company having a time lag of one month.
After the Energiesprong retrofit, all the buildings will meet Net Zero Standards and generate as much energy, on average over the year, as the residents need for their heating, electricity and hot water. This will save around 90% of the primary energy required and around 570 tonnes of CO2 per year.
With this pilot project, LEG is aiming to set out a pathway for transforming its property portfolio into being climate-neutral. The aim of this real-life laboratory is to test which retrofit method is the most energy-efficient and cost-effective and which is, therefore, best suited for retrofitting larger housing stocks to be energy efficient.
"We are very pleased to be doing real pioneering work in our residential area together with our four professional partner companies - and we are very excited to see the first results. The new serial retrofit approach using a prefabricated façade and roof elements has never existed on this scale in Germany before. From our point of view, this is the right response to the many issues regarding the climate protection needed and the goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2045, in particular the lack of skills capacity and the current increase in energy costs," said Dr. Volker Wiegel, COO of LEG Immobilien SE.
