ANPA Construction of a heating network in The Hague
NOS News•today, 5:52 PM•Adjusted today, 6:03 PM
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Ewoud Kieviet
Political reporter
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Ewoud Kieviet
Political reporter
The outgoing cabinet wants to invest millions in heating networks, as agreed in the Spring Memorandum that will be presented next week. This is what sources say to NOS. In recent weeks, projects with heating networks in Amsterdam and Utrecht, among others, have stalled due to increasing costs. By providing more subsidies, outgoing minister Jetten wants to make the networks more profitable.
First of all, there will be a Guarantee Fund of 250 million for the period up to 2030. This is a fund to start up new heating networks. This fund should be enough to cover 80 to 90 percent of the costs during the construction phase. As a result, the national government is taking an interest in new heating networks.
The condition for this is that the heating networks come into public hands, as Jetten wants in the long term throughout the Netherlands. As a result, this fund does not offer a quick solution to the problems that arise in Amsterdam, for example, because private parties are also responsible for the construction of heating networks there. Housing associations there are no longer connecting homes to district heating for the time being due to the high costs for tenants.
How does the heating network work?
In a heating network, houses are heated with residual heat from industry. The heat released is used to heat water that is pumped to houses via an underground pipe system.
Heat networks are used, especially in urban areas, to get large districts off natural gas. Unlike heat pumps, it does not put extra pressure on the full energy grid.
Users of a heating network are dependent on one energy supplier who arranges the connections throughout the building. Consumers cannot switch to another provider if the supplier increases the price. That is why the House of Representatives now wants an attractive price to be guaranteed.
The outgoing cabinet also wants to increase the Heat Investment Subsidy from 400 million euros to 920 million euros. This subsidy should ensure that existing heating networks become more profitable. This could help tackle the problems in the big cities as early as next year.
Precisely because there are high costs for users, energy companies or housing associations, the development of the heating network there is now slow. Because the government will soon subsidize a larger portion, things should go better next year, government sources say.
More climate tax
Minister Jetten is also coming up with additional climate measures for fuel suppliers and agriculture. The European Emissions Trading System (ETS), which requires companies to pay for CO2 emissions, is being extended from industry to fuel suppliers. That’s called ETS2. This means that companies such as Shell and BP will also have to pay for their emissions from 2027.
This explainer explains what this could mean at the pump and on the energy bill, and why the European Parliament chose this:
In this way, we will all ultimately pay for our CO2 emissions
ETS2 is also partly being introduced in agriculture. It will apply to stables and mechanical engineering. This means that tractor builders, for example, will have to pay for their CO2 emissions. Greenhouse horticulture and fishing will be spared for the time being and will not have to pay this climate tax.
The plans will be announced early next week when the Spring Memorandum of the outgoing cabinet is presented. That presentation has been brought forward because the forming parties requested it.
2024-04-12 15:52:31
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