Recent Articles
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An Energy-Self-Sufficient Community
Using wind, sunlight, wood chips, and biogas, the village of Feldheim, Germany, makes all of its own electricity and heat
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German Building Codes Keep Ratcheting Up
By 2021, new buildings in Germany will need to comply with Europe’s ‘nearly net zero’ goal
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Germany’s Bioenergy Villages
Known as Bioenergiedörfer, these villages use locally sourced sustainable fuels to produce most of their electricity and space heat
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A Construction Trade Fair in Germany
At the BauTec 2014 conference in Berlin, manufacturers promoted new building materials, touted their HVAC equipment, and distributed free beer
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Visiting a District Heating Plant in Austria
Hundreds of buildings in Flachau, Austria, are heated by a central plant that burns wood chips from local forests
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A Visit to a German Home Center
The Bauhaus store in Berlin resembles a Home Depot or Lowe’s — but offers many products that are unavailable in the U.S.
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A German Deep-Energy Retrofit
In Berlin, expanded polystyrene (EPS) is the insulation of choice for exterior insulation retrofit projects
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An Energy-Efficiency Conference in Germany
A report from the recent DENA conference in Berlin: Germany aims for increased energy efficiency, a reduction in fossil fuel use, and social justice
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Germany’s Energy Revolution
Germans are committed to the country’s ‘Energiewende,’ but the details of the shift to renewable energy sources are often debated