Freiburg in the context of "Sun Ship (building)"

An energy-plus building (also called: plus energy building, plus-energy house, efficiency-plus house) produces more energy from renewable energy sources, over the course of a year, than it imports from external sources. This is achieved using a combination of microgeneration technology and low-energy building techniques, such as: passive solar building design, insulation and careful site selection and placement. A reduction of modern conveniences can also contribute to energy savings, however many energy-plus houses are almost indistinguishable from a traditional home, preferring instead to use highly energy-efficient appliances, fixtures, etc., throughout the house.

"Plusenergihuset" (the plus energy house) was the Danish term used by Jean Fischer in his publication from 1982 about his own energy-plus house.PlusEnergy is a brand name, used by Rolf Disch, to describe a structure that produces more energy than it uses. The term was coined by Disch in 1994 when building his private residence, the Heliotrope as the first PlusEnergy house in the world. Disch then went on to refine the concepts involved with several more projects built by his company, Rolf Disch Solar Architecture, in order to promote PlusEnergy for wider adoption in residential, commercial and retail spaces. Disch maintains that PlusEnergy is more than just a method of producing environmentally-friendly housing, but also an integrated ecological and architectural concept. As such, PlusEnergy is intended to be superior to low-energy or zero-energy designs such as those of Passivhaus.

Vauban (German pronunciation: [voˈbãː]) is a neighbourhood (Stadtteil) to the south of the town centre in Freiburg, Germany. It was built as "a sustainable model district" on the site of a former French military base named after Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, the 17th century French Marshal who built fortifications in Freiburg while the region was under French rule. Construction began in 1998, and the first two residents arrived in 2001.

Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially used for electricity generation and as photosensors.

A photovoltaic system employs solar modules, each comprising a number of solar cells, which generate electrical power. PV installations may be ground-mounted, rooftop-mounted, wall-mounted or floating. The mount may be fixed or use a solar tracker to follow the sun across the sky.

Bronisław Ferdynand Trentowski (Polish: [trɛnˈtɔfskʲi]; 21 January 1808, Opole – 16 June 1869, Freiburg) was a Polish "Messianist" philosopher, pedagogist, journalist and Freemason, and the chief representative of the Polish Messianist "national philosophy."

Helmut Rix (4 July 1926, in Amberg – 3 December 2004, in Colmar) was a German linguist and professor of the Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar of Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Germany.

He is best known for his research into Indo-European and Etruscan languages, as well as for being the author of the hypothesis of Tyrrhenian languages.

The Solar Settlement at Schlierberg (German: Solarsiedlung am Schlierberg) is a 59-home PlusEnergy housing community in Freiburg, Germany. Solar architect Rolf Disch wanted to apply his PlusEnergy concept, created originally with his Heliotrope home, to mass residential production. The residential complex won awards, including House of the Year (2002), Residential PV solar integration award (2002), and "Germany's most beautiful housing community" (2006). It is one of the first housing communities in the world in which all the homes produce a positive energy balance and which is emissions-free and CO₂ neutral.

Rolf Disch is a German architect, solar energy pioneer and environmental activist. Born in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, Disch has dedicated particular focus to regional renewable and sustainable energy.

As head of his own architecture firm, Rolf Disch Solar Architecture, Disch is committed to advancing Germany's incorporation of solar energy generation into residential, retail, and commercial building and design. In 1994, Rolf Disch built the Heliotrope in Freiburg which was the world’s first home to create more energy than it uses, as it physically rotates with the sun to maximize its solar intake. Disch then developed the concept PlusEnergy, simply making it a permanent goal for his buildings to produce more energy than they consume in order to sell the surplus solar energy back into the grid for profit.