![]() Visser & Smit Hanab | Drilling Technologies, a division of VolkerWessels, are responsible for the New Heatway’s design, construction and maintenance. Initiated by Warmtebedrijf Rotterdam, a public-private initiative, the New Heatway’s initiators and shareholders include the Province of South Holland, the Municipality of Rotterdam, WoonBron housing corporation and E.On, the Netherlands’ largest energy provider. But it’s also the site of a groundbreaking project: there, in the biggest waste-slash-power plant in Europe, residual warmth from surrounding port industries is collected and diverted into the “New Heatway” ( De Nieuwe Warmteweg), a 26-kilometer-long double pipeline running from Rozenburg to the Maasstad Hospital and back, redistributing the excess heat to homes and businesses along the way. That waste is converted into steam, heat and electricity through incineration. In addition to household, industrial and biomass waste, the plant has recently begun to process imported waste as well. The process begins at the AVR Waste-to-Energy plant in Rozenburg, a borough of Rotterdam about 20 kilometers west of the CBD on the southern bank of the Maas River. The system uses excess energy from the city’s port to heat individual homes. But today more than 50,000 Rotterdam households are heated by the port’s residual warmth, with plans to heat an additional 95,000 by the end of 2014. Until 2012, that heat was simply released into the atmosphere or the Maas River. But water is, and the industrial activities that take place in the Port of Rotterdam produce an enormous amount of excess heat. With clouds blocking the sun through much of the winter, solar energy isn’t in abundance here. But Rotterdam is taking the method a step further. San Francisco, Denver and Seattle also use district heating systems, and Denmark and Germany are increasingly using solar-thermal panels to source their district heat. Manhattan, for instance, has a district heating system that’s been operated by Con Edison, the city’s utility company, since 1882. Systems vary from country to country, but most produce heat through cogeneration plants, geothermal heating or nuclear power. In 1949, Hotel Pax became the first building to be fully heated by the new system.ĭistrict heating is more energy efficient and produces lower carbon emissions than individual boilers. ![]() When the war ended in 1945, Johan Ringers, Minister of Public Works and Reconstruction, oversaw the rebuilding of the city and the simultaneous placement of a district heating pipeline. The system, in which multiple buildings are heated from a central, remote source rather than their own in-house boilers, was to be implemented during reconstruction of the areas that had been destroyed during the bombardment. During World War II, civil servants at the Municipality of Rotterdam developed plans for a district heating system. Luckily, Rotterdam is very good at keeping its residents warm and dry. In fact, most guidebooks recommend that tourists skip the Netherlands completely until the sun returns in May. ![]() The problem for many, however, isn’t the cold so much as the darkness, the wetness and the wind. From November until about the end of April, the city’s average temperature hovers between 1☌ and 5☌ (34☏ – 41☏). ![]()
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