Morgenstadt trying out technologies for the city of tomorrow

A city that obtains its power from renewable resources, where electric cars move quietly along the streets and which emits almost no carbon dioxide - researchers at Fraunhofer, Europe's largest application-oriented research organisation, are demonstrating which of the technologies can be readily implemented.

It has become quieter on the streets of Morgenstadt in Germany where electric cars are now the masters of the road. And quite a bit has changed where housing is concerned: ecological rent guidelines provide landlords with an incentive to restore their houses with energy efficiency in mind. Local heating supply with combined heating and power, as well as solar energy, are systematically expanding into large areas of the city, and Morgenstadt managed to occupy first place in the category of major cities in the federal solar league.

Old houses have been completely renovated where energy is concerned - even in the deepest winter they only need little heating to be comfortably warm. Last, but not least, new safety and security concepts ensure a resilient infrastructure such as railway stations. Plazas and city centers afford a high quality of life and comfort. And washing machines and dish washers run predominantly when electricity is most affordable.

In their publication "Morgenstadt - An answer to climate change", German federal minister Annette Schavan and the president of Fraunhofer, Hans-Jörg Bullinger, supported by 19 researchers from business, science and politics, describe this vision for the high-tech strategy of the German federal government.

"Morgenstadt" is one of the lighthouse projects adopted by Fraunhofer in the course of the high-tech strategy of the German federal government: "The sustainable restructuring of our cities creates new challenges in the areas of power supply, water supply, infrastructure, waste removal and mobility", says Bullinger. "Despite the varying speeds of innovation in terms of information and communication technologies and supply networks, new solutions must be found and the existing substance must be taken into consideration for the long term".

"The opportunities afforded these days in the areas of renewable energies, electro mobility, urban production or mobile information and communication technologies are of immense importance for the cities of the future in their function as central living areas for our society," said Prof Dr-Ing Dieter Spath, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO in Stuttgart.