The district of Ypenburg in the city of The Hague has ambitious plans to free itself of natural gas for its district heating needs and plans the set up of a geothermal heating plant by 2025.

Frank Lentz, chairman of the HWY foundation, is proud of “his” Ypenburg, talking about sustainable plans and his dream: sustainable warmth for all 25,000 Ypenburgers. “We now get our central heating and hot tap water from city heat. Around 9,000 Ypenburg homes are connected to that heat network, plus 1,000 in a neighboring neighborhood in Nootdorp. 1,000 other homes are not yet on the heat network. We are investigating how we can heat all these homes in a sustainable way – without gas. ”

Geothermal: heat from groundwater

The first and most important idea is geothermal energy: geothermal heat. Its use in the Netherlands is starting more slowly than planned. So far, only small-scale projects have been realized; there is not yet one city that heats a neighborhood with geothermal energy. But research has shown that it is possible in Ypenburg.

A gasless heat network based on geothermal works with lower temperatures than the current, gas-fired heat network. To get the same comfortable heat in all houses, homes must be suitable for lower temperatures and you must also make the network more intelligent.

 The last stop on our round is at the combined heat and power plant on the outskirts of the neighborhood, at Prins Clausplein. Here, on vacant municipal land, the planned well with geothermal heating plant will arrive in 2025 if the plans go ahead. Much earlier – no later than the beginning of 2020 – Eneco has installed a 12 megawatt thermal capacity (MWth) electrode boiler in the existing plant.

 ”The use of the electreboiler saves 700,000 cubic meters of gas per year. The electrode boiler can also store peak yields of sustainably generated electricity from the sun and wind in the form of hot water. In this way, Ypenburg will optimally use even the smallest bit of sustainable energy.