Mettmenstetten receives the Energy City Gold Award
The Energy City Association has awarded Mettmenstetten the Energy City Gold distinction. This means that the town is one of 460 municipalities in Switzerland that use at least 75 per cent of their room for manoeuvre in renewable energies, energy efficiency and climate protection.
Mettmenstetten is the first municipality in the Affoltern district to be awarded the title of Energy City Gold. According to a report in the “Anzeiger aus dem Berzirk Affoltern”, the Zurich government councillor and Green Party building director Martin Neukom presented the certification at the Energy Day in Mettmenstetten to Céline Lingua, president of the Knonau-Maschwanden-Mettmenstetten secondary school, Melanie Vollenweider, president of the Mettmenstetten primary school, and Marcel Eicher, municipal councillor in Mettmenstetten.
According to the report, the village municipality only started with energy policy measures at a late stage. The first certification by the Energy City Association was in 2014, but since then Mettmenstetten has “sprinted in terms of energy policy”, Bruno Bébié, member of the board and former energy commissioner of the city of Zurich, is quoted in the media report.
In the meantime, the municipality is ranked eleventh in the cantonal energy city ranking. “This testifies to energy policy commitment,” Bébié continued.
The primary and secondary schools played a major role in the certification. The Knonau-Maschwanden-Mettmenstetten secondary school, for example, is now energy self-sufficient. The Mättmi secondary school, which includes an indoor swimming pool, has been generating heat and electricity in an integrated combined heat and power plant for a few years. This is operated with bio-gas. This hybrid box solution reduces CO2 emissions by 100 per cent compared to the previous oil-fired heating system, according to the blog of the FDP Kanton Zürich.
The Energiestadt Gold certification of the supporting association Energiestadt is the highest award for cities and municipalities that “are continuously committed to the efficient use of energy, renewable energies and climate protection and meet particularly high requirements”, it says on the website of the supporting association. For the gold label, they must use at least 75 per cent of their respective scope for action.