The German government is currently working on a concept for additional or supplementary CO₂ pricing in order to achieve the national CO₂ reduction targets. It is to be expected that all energy sources will become more expensive in the short term. In particular, the use of CO₂-intensive energy sources such as oil and gas will therefore become significantly more expensive in the coming year. These additional costs will also continue to rise in subsequent years and therefore also result in rising costs in inpatient care.

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Read more: Climate change will cause energy costs to rise - how can care facilities counteract this?

Since a number of years South Africa has developed a more proactive energy policy in the sense of Energiewende (energy transition) including energy efficiency. Since 2011 Germany and South Africa are accordingly cooperating in the field of energy. The South African-German Energy Programme (SAGEN) is funded by the German Government and implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in cooperation with the Department of Energy (DoE) and the South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI).

Read more: Energy Efficiency Technology for South Africa

As part of a restructuring of its energy supply the University of Cologne plans to focus more on renewable energy sources in the future. In this context, DFIC was commissioned with the planning of a sustainable cooling and heating supply based on geothermal energy for a new institute building on the mathematical-scientific campus. DFIC is planning to use so-called high-performance energy piles (HEP) to develop the potential of geothermal energy with a stable temperature level throughout the year of approx. 10°C at a depth of 15 - 30 m (near surface geothermal area).

The 28 m deep HEPs, each filled with up to 30,000 litres of water, can be sunk into the ground outside the building and provide regenerative heating or cooling capacity, either operating as a heat source or alternatively as heat sink. The HEP system develops a 100% renewable and extremely efficient form of energy supply, especially with regard to the supply of low-temperature heating and cooling requirements.

After winning the tender, DFIC is once again providing advice on export and project financing in various countries as part of the Energy Efficiency Export Initiative of the Ministry of Economics and Climate Action (BMWK). The consultancy services offered cover a wide range of technologies and financing methods in accordance with company-specific requirements. The use of subsidies for the various promotion possibilities in the phase of market and project development is also included.

DFIC has been supporting the Export Initiative since 2012 and has extensive experience in consulting and implementation of financing for companies and projects. Furthermore, DFIC has prepared various financing studies on foreign markets, which assess local financing and promotion possibilities for the respective target markets and help German companies to find the right financing and subsidy options for their projects.

Financing studies can be downloaded here.