Taking the district of Marienthal in the Saxon town of Zwickau as an example, researchers are seeking to test how the energy transition can be implemented in an ecologically efficient, socially compatible and economically viable manner. To this end, the 13 project teams, coordinated by the town of Zwickau and scientifically led by the University of Applied Sciences Zwickau, will not only be focusing on the use of heat pumps, energy storage tanks and PV plants. They will also specifically be aiming to develop smart control technologies in order to efficiently combine these technologies and reduce the energy costs in the districts.

In terms of mobility, the zero-emissions district of Marienthal will be concentrating on electromobility. To ensure that this is implemented as extensively as possible, part of the project will involve developing a charging station too, which will permit charging through a variety of fast-charging systems. Furthermore, in the Marienthal real-world laboratory, the reciprocal interactions between the new energy concepts and the citizens will be investigated: any concerns the residents might have are to be jointly discussed. However, in another part of the district, the energy is to continue being supplied by conventional means for reference purposes. In this way, it will also be possible to see what effect advice and information have on the residents’ energy consumption.

The project is being funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) and the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) until 2022 within the scope of the Solar Construction/Energy-Efficient City initiative.