Warming your house with energy generated in your own city. That is the wish in Eindhoven. The municipality is setting up an energy and heating company which should eventually provide more than half of the households in the city with heating. “We want to ensure an affordable form of energy”.
These are the words of Rik Thijs. As the responsible Alderperson, he is one of the driving forces behind the initiative. A new private limited company (BV), established by the municipality, must ensure a sustainable, affordable and reliable energy supply for residents and companies from January onwards. For example, the bio-energy plant in Meerhoven can be used for this purpose. This is already owned by the Municipality of Eindhoven.
The plan to take matters into their own hands does not come out of the blue. The goal is to have a sustainable heat supply in Eindhoven by 2050. According to the city council, however, the market parties and they themselves are not always on the same page about this mission.
“To date, market parties have selected heat projects that achieve a commercial return. As a result, areas in the city are not made natural gas-free where this could be possible, or prices must be such that a commercial return is achieved”, the municipality says.
Affordable
And that has consequences for Eindhoven residents who are less well off. “This also means that not everyone can participate or that households pay a different rate depending on their location in the city and the heating company that should supply them with heat”.
The city council therefore wants to make it attractive for residents to say goodbye to natural gas with their own Limited Company. That is why a different calculation is used than the market parties. For example, the price is not passed on from door to door.
“You cannot do that, because it makes quite a difference whether you move into a new apartment or into a home that has been around for sixty or seventy years. And those require much greater sustainability measures. That is one of the biggest underlying motivations for starting a public company, so that you do not have half a city that is doing well because the residents involved have a low energy bill,” the Alderperson says.
Sources of money
Various sources of money are being tapped to make this a reality. Think of connection costs paid by residents, subsidies from the government, loans and money from the municipality. For example, the city council is allocating a maximum of €18,000,000 for a period of seven years. There is also a budget of €8,500,000 for the first three years to set up the organisation. The municipality cannot answer how much it will cost in total.
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
