Smart City Baumgarten

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The "SmartCity Baumgarten" quarter is located in Vienna's 14th district and is characterized by a mix of buildings from different eras, typical of Vienna's outer districts. The district currently consists of 3 buildings - an apartment building with a sole owner, a condominium building from the 1980s and a new condominium building being constructed by WIEBE. As the district is located outside the district heating supply area, the heat supply here has so far mainly been provided by gas and oil heating systems.

In future, the (currently) three buildings in the SmartCity Baumgarten district will be supplied with 100% renewable heating, cooling and electricity via a cross-property anergy network. This will be possible thanks to the construction of the new building in a gap between blocks. Even before the start of construction, a partnership was launched between the developer of the new building and the owners of the surrounding buildings. They joined together to form an association to implement the project and together they form Austria's first energy community with an anergy network in existing buildings.

An association was founded to finance the anergy network and, later on, to operate it. The four founding members of the association are the managing director of the property developer, the owners of the apartment building, the property manager of the condominium and Günter Lang as the project initiator. Once the anergy network is up and running, all energy consumers become members of the association.

Tasks of the association:
- Coordination of planning (primarily with Günter Lang)
- Operation, maintenance, billing

Roles within the association:
- Chairman: Günter Lang. He also acts as caretaker and coordinates the entire project, particularly in the planning and start-up phase.
- Board: Founding members.
- Treasurer: Managing director of the new building.
- Secretary: Property manager of the WEG.
- Deputy chairman: Owner of the apartment building.

Roles must be re-elected every 2 years.

An association was founded to finance the anergy network. The costs of the geothermal probes and the pipe network were divided among the association members according to their energy requirements.

Investment costs:
- Apartment building (5.4 probes): 80,000€ paid in by the owner alone.
- WEG (6.6 probes): Eight out of 15 apartments have paid the €6,500 investment costs directly. The remaining apartments want to pay off the costs via a monthly lump sum (expected to be around €45 per month over 15 years).
- New construction (12 probes): The investment costs for the anergy network are included directly in the sale of the apartment.

Energy costs:
The energy will not be provided free of charge, but will cost approx. 5 cents per kWh. This money will flow into the association and cover the operating costs.

Refurbishment costs:
A prerequisite for the establishment of the anergy network was the thermal refurbishment of the apartment building and the WEG. The refurbishment costs are not included in the financing concept of the Anergienetz and are borne by the buildings alone.

Business model/economy: Expected to save costs after 5 years.

The anergy network, which will be in operation from summer 2024, is a cross-building pipe system in which low-temperature water circulates between heat sources (solar collectors, waste heat from cooling), heat storage tanks (geothermal probes) and heat consumers (brine heat pumps in each house). For this purpose, a geothermal probe field with 25 geothermal probes was installed in the new building and a central energy management system was installed. This not only controls the heat, but also the electricity, which comes from the buildings' own photovoltaic systems on the façade, roof and pergola, among other things. The 25 geothermal probes are on average 150 m deep and are connected to central brine heat pumps in each house (two central 26 kW brine heat pumps with propane and apartment-by-apartment stations for hot water in Linzer Straße, 45 kW heat pump in house 282 as well as brine surface collector, thermal solar collectors, two 60 kW heat pumps and 50 kW booster and 12 kW peak load coverage on the property 286-288)

Form of energy: Local heating for heating and hot water, photovoltaics for electricity
Location of the system: The central heat pumps are located in the cellars of the individual buildings.
Connection of the households: The households are connected to the central heat pump in the basement via risers. All households are connected to the anergy grid.
Ownership structure: The association is the owner of the entire anergy network.