District Energy News

Dutch municipalities use a Danish workshop to define common needs.

As part of this FRC-II project, the Dutch municipalities visited the Danish municipality of Hjørring. In a workshop exercise, Hjørring was placed in the Netherlands and completely stripped of all district heating (DH). The task was to define the steps the new Dutch municipality would take to roll out DH extensively: What would the municipality do itself, and what support would it need from the state, BNG Bank, the municipal organization VNG, housing associations, cooperatives, and others?

Along with discussions inspired by presentations from the Danish Energy Agency and BNG Bank, the workshop resulted in a lot of input and ideas – all aiming to make the next steps toward more DH in the Netherlands easier.

A cornerstone in the FRC-II project is improving the sparring and knowledge-sharing directly between the participating Dutch municipalities and between Dutch and Danish participants.

With this final workshop in November 2023, the FRC-II project is complete, but the network is strong, and people will stay in touch. This is the experience from the first Front-Runner Cities project, and DBDH and the other project organisers value all the new and improved connections with these ambitious Dutch municipalities.