Virtual visit of the Federal Chancellor in the Smart Quarter Jena-Lobeda

Model project as blueprint for sustainable digital cities and regions

German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel visited the Smart Quarter Jena-Lobeda today via live broadcast. The Stadtwerke Jena's model project was the subject of the annual Digital Summit of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, which took place in 2020 under the motto "Living digitally more sustainably". During a tour of the exhibits at the end of the summit, Angela Merkel learned from Jena's Lord Mayor Dr. Thomas Nitzsche how the Jena-Lobeda Smart Quarter can serve as a blueprint for sustainable digital cities and regions in the future.

For the virtual visit of the Chancellor, a television studio was set up in the main building of the Stadtwerke Jena subsidiary jenawohnen, with a replica of the Jena-Lobeda Smart Quarter at its centre. Using the exhibit, the Chancellor learned how the Smart Quarter can also contribute to ecological, economic and social sustainability in other cities and communities through intelligent networking.

270 apartments comprehensively renovated and smartly equipped

In the Smart Quarter Jena-Lobeda model project, 270 existing GDR apartments of the type "WBS70" are currently being extensively renovated and equipped with Smart Home solutions. Analogue and digital services are gradually being created for the tenants to support them in their daily lives, enabling long-term, affordable living and sustainably increasing the quality of life. Ecological sustainability can be experienced through sharing approaches, among other things. The sharing of mobility offers, premises and commodities is intended to promote the sustainable use of resources. The economic sustainability succeeds through the use of intelligently networked solutions for renovation and possibilities for using energy more efficiently. Using the example of smart health services, the Smart Quarter demonstrates how social sustainability goes hand in hand with medical care for the local population. Tenants will be able to access all future services in the Smart Quarter barrier-free via a central Quarter platform, where they can also contact the landlord and other tenants.

Objective: To transfer approaches to rural areas

Many of the different blueprints in the Smart Quarter Jena-Lobeda have been designed to be transferred to the surrounding area and should also help to ensure sustainable and comprehensive supply security in rural areas. This claim was of central importance from the beginning of our project,

says Gunar Schmidt, managing director of Stadtwerke Jena Netze. The jenawohnen managing director Tobias Wolfrum adds:

In our project, we can see first-hand how digitisation is received by people, what obstacles arise and how opportunities can be used. We are very pleased that our approach has met with the interest of the Federal Chancellor.

Under the direction of both managing directors, the model project is working on seamlessly integrating digitization into the everyday lives of tenants so that it reaches them intuitively.

Dr. Thomas Nitzsche, Lord Mayor of the city of Jena, is also enthusiastic:

The fact that we were able to present the Smart Quarter project to the Chancellor makes us incredibly proud and proves once again that Jena is very well positioned in the field of digitization. With further funding projects for the expansion of Smart City or 5G, we will be able to further strengthen our claim to be the leading digital city.

With a view to the Digital Summit, he adds

Unfortunately, the Digital Summit could not take place in local presence due to the pandemic. But to have him as a virtual guest at the same time speaks all the more for Jena as a digital city.

In accordance with this year's summit motto "Digital sustainable living", the exhibit of the Smart Quarter was recycled from already existing components of previous summits. In addition to the three residential buildings of the Smart Quarter, it represents further buildings of the city of Jena such as the Jentower.

Background Smart Quarter Jena-Lobeda

Since the beginning of this year jenawohnen has been renovating the residential buildings at Ziegesarstraße 9 to 19 in three construction phases as part of the Smartes Quartier Jena-Lobeda model project. The entire project is expected to be completed by the end of 2023. In order to increase the quality of life for the tenants and to relieve them in their everyday lives, all of the approximately 270 residential units will be equipped with Smart Home elements. High-performance Internet is available through fiber optic cables that will be laid right into the apartments. Among other things, tenants will be able to take advantage of health, mobility and logistics services, as well as to contact other tenants and their landlord via a neighbourhood platform. This networking is intended to create a new kind of community. Despite Corona, the renovation work from jenawohnen is almost on schedule. The first 108 tenants are scheduled to move into the buildings at Ziegesarstraße 9 and 11 in the spring. About half of all refurbished apartments will be offered as rent-controlled social housing.