The city of Freiburg, in South West Germany, has gone beyond Federal and European energy efficiency and renewable energy obligations as a requirement for the 38 hectare development of Vauban. Planning for Vauban began in 1993 and construction was completed in 2006, the site is now home to 5,000 residents and employment space for 600 people. As a requirement of planning permission all buildings were required to achieve minimum low energy standards of 65 kWh/m²/year heating energy requirement; additionally, 100 units were built to “passive house” standard of 15 kWh/m²/year or to “plus energy” standard (“plus energy” houses produce more energy than they use) (SECURE, 2007).
The achieved environmental benefits go beyond the local planning requirements of the site with all buildings achieving 45 kWh/m²/year for heating energy through a combination of district heating, CHP, solar PV, solar thermal, biomass and refuse and heat recovery (SECURE, 2007).
Vauban is an exemplary development driven by standards set by Freiburg Local Authority. These high standards are starting to be implemented in other developments in the city and are being integrated into Freiburg’s city-wide energy standards. For example Freiburg’s building design standards initially required that all new houses built on municipally-owned land (or land sold by the municipality) use no more than 65 kWh/m²/year (which in 1992 was 30% below the national standard); this minimum standard continues to be reduced - in 2005 it was reduced to 50 kWh/m²/year and there are plans in place to bring building emissions to Passivhaus standard (15 kWh/m²/year) (Wömer, 2006).