Until 2024, Eindhoven University of Technology had purchased gas from Gazprom. Due to European sanctions on Russia, the university cancelled that contract, which means that it will have to pay around 2 Euros per cubic meter instead of 15 cents per cubic meter.
Energy management advisor Thijs Meulen says that as a result, the university will pay one million euros more for gas in the last quarter of 2022 alone.
And that is sour for the university, also because the sanctions have no effect: after all, the European energy mix on which the university is dependent also contains Russian gas – for which TU/e now has to pay more than ten times as much.
Three months
Because of this situation and others, The Hague decided that municipalities do not have to cancel an energy contract immediately; there is an exemption for three months. That could have saved TU/e a million euros.
Difficult to digest
They also find that difficult to digest at TU/e. “As a university, we went through all the steps that we had to go through. Now suddenly there is a message from the government that termination with immediate effect at Gazprom was difficult or impossible to implement and TU/e would have been granted an exemption until January 1, 2023,” says Meulen.
Nevertheless, there is still understanding for the decision-making of the cabinet. “It is no longer possible to turn back, but the university should not want that either. The switch to Greenchoice is still the right one emotionally,” Meulen said.
Source: Studio040
For Eindhoven News: Lila Mehrez
