Centre of Applied Research Urban Energy Systems and Resource Efficiency

The focus of the Institute of Industrial Ecology is on the assessment of energy and resource efficiency in the overall context. In assessing complex urban systems in addition to the energy consumption and its environmental impact the use of other natural resources has to be considered. Energy is also bound in material flows, production of goods and in the infrastructure ("Embodied Energy"). This plays an important role in the metabolism of urban systems. This is followed by several important aspects: energy savings or the contribution to climate protection can often only be assessed holistically in the context of the whole energy and material metabolism. At the same, methods are required to assess and optimize the complex technical systems and their environmental impact multi-criterially. The holistic assessment approaches and optimization methods to be applied in the project specifically to the case studies and provide an overarching assessment of options for action.