The municipality of Apeldoorn is situated in the Netherlands, to the east of Amsterdam, and has set itself the ambitious target of becoming carbon neutral by 2020. With the support of the CONCERTO project, it took its first steps towards realising this goal in the model district of Zuidbroek and constructed a new housing estate that has been built to the highest of energy standards.
Zuidbroek is a neighbourhood where people can live and work and where the issues of energy, water and green landscape play an important role. The plan was for Zuidbroek to accommodate new homes, to expand the business park by 25,000 m² and to create a local park of around 30 hectares. Whilst constructing the new area, Apeldoorn is putting into practice the belief that good planning, that takes all key stakeholders into account, plays a central role in the development of a successful, sustainable community.
In order to achieve the goal of “Zuidbroek Energy Neutral”, the municipality of Apeldoorn organised awareness raising campaigns that were aimed at the residents, local businesses and stakeholders as well as the manufacturers and suppliers of energy efficient products and services.
The results are palpable, energy saving ideas. In order to improve energy efficiency, measures have been taken in various areas, for example home insulation. A biomass plant (digester and Combined Heat and Power (CHP) units) has been installed to convert sewage sludge into energy. A total of 800 homes have been connected to the district heating network and now have an energy performance that exceeds new building regulations by 20 %. An energy consumption information website has been set up and intelligent heat metering in new housing provides residents with detailed, real-time energy consumption information. The project resulted in an 80 % reduction of fossil fuel demand with respect to the Dutch reference situation.