Many landlords and renters in Germany are keen to participate in the Energiewende, the energy turnaround, but don’t know where to begin. Now a start-up from Munich created an easy-to-follow “tenant electricity model” based on the interaction of landlord, tenant and electricity provider, after receiving funding from The German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU).

The energy management software from Ampeers Energy helps building owners to plan and implement renewable energy systems – typically based on solar – along with vital energy saving measures such as insulation to comply with sustainable buildings guidance and regulations.

The advantages are clear: landlords can generate home-grown electricity from apartment block rooves and sell it to their inhabitants at favourable rates; tenants can benefit from sustainable, low-cost electricity without having to pay grid fees or electricity tax, and are protected from surging gas prices. In this way, Germany’s privately-owned, older housing stock is gradually decarbonised, block by block.

“We are experiencing a turning point in energy issues… In addition to the important expansion of renewable energies, we must pay much more attention to energy saving and energy efficiency than we have in the past,” comments Alexander Bonde, secretary general of DBU, in an article in Solar Server.

Ampeers uses the technology and know-how of Sistems, which invested a double-digit million amount in the young business. Since being incubated by the DBU's Green Start-up Programme, Ampeers has gone on to win some strong partners including the Austrian real estate company Austria Real.