District Heating and Cooling

In 2007 we continued to work on the implementation of our heating strategy: the connection of new areas in urban conglomerations where Nuon has constructed or intends to construct the necessary heating infrastructure. We put a lot of energy into the expansion of our activities for the delivery of heating in our core areas: Greater Amsterdam, the Arnhem-Nijmegen region and Rotterdam and vicinity.

Heating

Nuon hoped to have a number of major contracts ratified in the course of 2007. However, the contract for Amsterdam North was not signed until January 2008, whilst efforts to achieve ratification for the project in Rotterdam have been unsuccessful so far. The agreement for the supply of heating to Almere Poort is expected to be completed in the spring of 2008.

Under the contract with Amsterdam North, Nuon will start connecting 15,000 homes to a heating network from 2008. The homes will be supplied with heating from the AEB (Waste Energy Company). The unexpected delay was largely due to the complexity of the contract. No less than 9 independent market parties (housing associations and project developers), the municipality of Amsterdam and Westpoort Warmte (a Joint Venture of Nuon and AEB) were involved in the negotiations. We would also have liked to realise the final heating contract for Rotterdam South in 2007. This however was postponed to the summer of 2008 due to ongoing discussions about the purchasing of heating. The Rotterdam Heating Authority originally held talks with Shell, but is now in discussion with AVR in Rotterdam. Nuon expects to be able to connect the first homes here in 2008.

A heating contract was signed for Arnhem Presikhaaf on 20 April. This concerns an urban renewal project where over 2,300 homes and almost 70,000 m2 of offices and amenities will be connected to the network. Since the start of the year heating has been delivered to Arnhem Schuytgraaf from Nuon’s combined heat and power station at Kleefse Waard. Apart from steam for companies in the Kleefse Waard industrial estate, the power station has hitherto delivered only a modest amount of heating to the centre of Arnhem. All in all, 6,500 homes will be connected to the heating network. By way of a back-up for the supply from the Kleefse Waard power station, we are developing an Auxiliary Heating Station. The plan to burn biodiesel in this boiler can finally be realised now that the required permits have been obtained. The construction work is underway. One advantage of biodiesel over bio-oil is that it can be stored cold whereas bio-oil needs to be heated.

Cooling

The Cooling Station on the Amsterdam Zuidas (opened in 2006) was bedevilled by setbacks in 2007. The installation was affected by corrosion, indicating that the wrong type of steel had been chosen. During the pipe replacement operation, a temporary installation needed to be used in order to meet our contractual obligations. Owing to the operationalisation of the temporary installation, less CO2 emissions than planned were avoided in 2007. 

We were also faced with the revocation of our permit to use cooling water from the ‘Nieuwe Meer’ Lake for the cooling installation. The Council of State rejected the permit application on the grounds that the motivation was not based on the latest available scientific knowledge. This unpleasant surprise coincided with the corrosion problems in the first quarter. Fortunately, the temporary installation supplied cooling based on air coolers instead of water so that the revocation of the permit had no adverse consequences for the continuity of the cooling supply. A new motivation was formulated together with WL Delft Hydraulics, on the basis of which we were granted a new permit in May. 

Despite these obstacles we were still able to connect new customers to our cooling network on the Zuidas. One new customer was KPN. The company thus immediately nominated itself for the Green Data Center Awards 2007. In 2008 the VU University Amsterdam will also be connected to the system. 

The preparations for supplying cooling in Amsterdam South-East are proceeding more slowly than we would like. During the permit application processes for cooling projects, we note that this innovative way of saving CO2 is still relatively unknown. Due to caution on the part of the authorities, more research, consultation and clarification are necessary to obtain a license. 

Innovation for Heating

In cooperation with Thermaflex from Waalwijk Nuon has already been working for several years on the development of plastic pipelines in order to significantly reduce the infrastructure construction time for heating projects. Whereas conventional pipelines are made of three layers (steel-PUR foam-plastic casing) and are delivered by lorry in 12 metre sections, the flexible plastic pipes can be rolled up for transportation. Although the material is not cheap, the benefit is significant in terms of project lead time and manpower. In addition, the transportation of the material is much more efficient than before. The heating loss is comparable to that of conventional pipelines, thus meeting one of the most important conditions for applying the new material.