Column by Marieke van den Boom-Witzel: Looking for Warmth

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The municipality of West Maas en Waal is investigating how homes can be disconnected from natural gas, with a heat network as an option. Residents are actively involved: 700 homes have been visited, and many want to participate. Without their commitment, the energy transition is not feasible.

Alderman van den Boom-Witzel

Last summer, I was in France with my family. I can immensely enjoy those beautiful, small French villages. This year, a question arose that I still don't have an answer to: how would all these houses have to get off natural gas? A question that came up because we are taking important steps in that direction in West Maas en Waal.

By 2050, we must phase out natural gas

That is a national agreement that we, as a municipality, must implement. In my view, the government is responsible for providing utilities such as gas, water, and electricity. But the new way of heating homes in the future is a local responsibility.

But where do you start? 

We have begun an investigation into the options available to us for transitioning homes away from natural gas. If we switch every home to electric heating, we’ll face a problem, because there isn’t enough electricity to power it all. That means we’re going to explore whether we can install a district heating network. Research shows that the best location for this within our municipality is north of Zandstraat and west of Molenstraat. There are enough homes in that area to see if we can build a good system to heat the homes using water from the Waal River and heat from a large company.

We really need our residents’ help with this

This brings us right to our residents’ doorsteps. After all, the warmth needs to be brought inside their homes as well. That’s why we started with our residents. Over the past few weeks, city employees have visited 700 homes to explain the plans. And to ask if they’d like to join us. To my great delight, many residents have indicated that they want to take on this challenge together with us. This marks a very important step forward. Because without the involvement of our residents, there’s simply no chance of success. And when our residents think and act alongside us like this, as Alderman , I Alderman feel truly inspired.  

Marieke van den Boom - Witzel
Alderman