Social Heating
A model to deliver affordable, renewable district heating by prioritising the social housing community
J.L.B. Feldbrugge (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
J.A. Naik (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
D.D. Harris (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
F.H. Kool (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
X.R.H. Kioe-A-Sen (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
M.M. Dabrowski – Mentor (TU Delft - Spatial Planning and Strategy)
N. Katsikis – Mentor (TU Delft - Urban Design)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
In order to achieve the national target of climate neutrality by 2050, the Netherlands needs to undergo an energy transition that will result in sweeping change to the energy system. Within the current energy system, energy poverty plagues nearly 400.000 Dutch households, and 75 percent of those households reside in social housing. What if the systemic change inherent to the impending energy transition could be used as an opportunity to eradicate energy poverty in the Netherlands? To answer this question, we design a vision and strategy to develop an affordable, renewable heating system in the region of Arnhem-Nijmegen, with the social housing community acting as both the social and organisational heart. We call this Social Heating. The vision and strategy have been designed using a mixed-methods approach involving conceptual and technical literature reviews, along with news media, policy, case study, energy, organisational, and spatial analyses. The result is a vision of an expanded, renewables-based district heating network extending to most of the Arnhem-Nijmegen region, delivered by a new, non-profit organisation, the Social Heating Association (“SHA”). An associated strategy details how the vision will be implemented through a combination of spatial and policy interventions, ordered over time in five phases extending to 2100. By harnessing the existing organisational capacity of social housing communities, and with careful planning and bold action, it is possible to provide affordable, renewable heating to all in the Arnhem-Nijmegen region. Further, we believe this model for heating can be used as a template for implementation in similar regions across the Netherlands.