Chair of Urban Infrastructure
In the centre of teaching and research at the chair of Urban Infrastructure stands the rational, sustainable and economical supply of cities with the systems of the technical infrastructure. Thereby the totality of the media electricity, heating, gas and water are considered.
Beginning with the analysis of energy streams in municipalities, the investigation of saving potentials up to the integrated power supply concepts, the chair makes a contribution to economic questions concerning the invariably increasing value of energy. The rational use of energy becomes today more important not only in view of climatic problems and resources availability but also in view of the changing demographic development in Germany. The boundary conditions within strongly shrinking settlements cause a strong change, which is of substantial importance for the planning and operation of the local energy industry.
In the past years, the consequences of the structural alteration in the town stood in the foreground of the research work into the operability and economic load-carrying capacity of the systems of the technical infrastructure. The development of solutions and the organization of transformation processes also need to consider the changing market conditions, i.e. the liberalisation in the field of technical infrastructures and thus a changing relationship of "private city" and "public city", which can be observed.
Systemic approaches are pursued through the integration of alternative energy sources and decentralized systems as well as local regional approaches of lasting managing. Parallel to this, research work aims at an economical and lasting modernization of supply and disposal systems.
Current research projects are directed on the determination of the promotion needs concerning town construction for the period 2007-2019 in Germany with consideration of the effects on the technical infrastructure. The work takes place in co-operation with the German Institut for economic research (DIW), the institute for financial and regional analyses (GEFRA) and the Institute for urban research and structural policy GmbH (IfS).
The chair of Urban Infrastructure has been established in 1997 by Professor Dr.-Ing. Matthias Koziol. He is a civil engineer, worked before his employment at the Brandenburg University of Technology at Cottbus as a freelancer of the PROGNOS AG, as a scientific co-worker at the Institute for Water, Waste Water and Urban Planning of the Technical University Darmstadt and as a co-partner of the COOPERATIVE, Infrastructure and Environment GbR as well as the managing director of the Planning Company for Infrastructure, Energy and System Engineering mbH in Darmstadt.
The chair established numerous co-operations with partner universities and federations as well as municipalities and supply companies.
