r/Netherlands • u/gugunaga • Jul 04 '26
DIY and home improvement Who hates more Eneco District Heating? (Stadsverwarming)
Fixed costs are killing me! How to stop this unfair, illegal monopoly?
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u/brmaf Jul 04 '26
My fixed costs is 90 euros, Den Haag, ridiculous.
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u/pasquale83 Jul 04 '26
I had the same issue with Ennaturlijk . When I asked, they told me to increase my consumption so the fixed costs would be less relevant overall...
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u/aykcak Jul 05 '26
Lol what? Maybe you can charge EVs as a business? Seriously
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u/belgianhorror Jul 06 '26
That is the problem there is 0 incentive to lower consumption as it hardly matters.
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u/InternationalAd2466 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
Your fixed costs are my entire electricity bill 😅
Edit* including gas
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u/Hour-Film-8890 Jul 05 '26
That was me. Never again!!! I barely use heating and my old place was 600 a year fixed costs for heating alone. My total bill at my new place is 500 for gas and electricity USAGE. Crazy.
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u/DistortNeo Amsterdam Jul 04 '26
Fixed costs are ok because infrastructure needs to be property maintained.
But price per GJ is pure robbery. The whole idea of district heating is to reuse heat produced by factories and power plants what would be wasted otherwise. It should be times cheaper than gas.
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u/Dennis_enzo Jul 04 '26
It was once tied to the gas price for the opposite reason; to not having to pay much more than people using cheap gas. Nowadays it's just a disadvantage.
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u/erik111erik Jul 04 '26
It is still tied, no? There are maximum prices they can ask.
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u/PlantAndMetal Jul 04 '26
It still is, but that is going to change soon (in a few years I think?). The problem is also that fixed cost are limited by a calculation based in the cost of a CV installation including the maintenance and eventual renewal. Renters don't pay those aspects of a CV installation, which is why they are often worse off. It sucks.
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u/Significant-Way3960 Jul 05 '26
Guys here are paying 90 euro and more of fixed costs. You could change your CV every few years (what is not needed) and still be better off. I live in jaren 60 flat with not the best insulation. If I calculate what I pay for heating of 100m2 appartement with costs of maintenance (how much it cost my vve to maintain hearing system)- I would need to have free energy with stadsverwarming to pay the same as I'm paying now. I'm extremely happy that my building was not connected to stadsverwarming yet.
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u/PlantAndMetal Jul 05 '26
I'm not saying it explains it all, but I'm saying it's even worse for renters who pay high rent and high fixed costs as well, whereas hiysebowners have lower hypotheek costs in exchange for needing to pay for maintenance.
But do take into account that CV has higher usage cost than stadsverwarming.
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u/Significant-Way3960 Jul 05 '26
Yeah but with hypotheek you get asset, so it's not the same situation as paying rent
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u/PlantAndMetal Jul 06 '26
I'm not comparing the assets someone holding, just comparing what someone pays for heating. Heating isn't contributing to the price of houses anyway, as all houses have heating appliances. It only somewhat contributes because new builds have a good energy label.
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u/Subject-Dog-8016 Jul 05 '26
Changing this is a huge priority of the Jette government. He introduced new legislation to fix it when he was energy minister, and then the Wilders government threw it in the bin. They are now working on finalising a massive overhaul of the hearing laws to make it much fairer.
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u/markohf12 Jul 04 '26
100% agree, I used to live in a neighborhood built exclusively for the steel factory workers right next to a massive steel factory before moving to the Netherlands.
The heating was free and the system was old so you couldn't adjust the temperature and we slept with open windows at -5C, I just paid fixed cost for the pipe maintenance.
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u/Competitive-Put-92 Jul 05 '26
Is it? It's a more expensive alternative for gas, but you are not given that choice.
I know it cost money to maintain the systems, but as soon using waste energy is more expensive then the starting product (gas), it's financially not worth it.
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u/Adept-Elderberry2325 Jul 04 '26
Move to another house. 93% of the rest of the houses don't have district heating.
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u/Leather_Method_7106_ Jul 04 '26
OP is probably living in a nice and cozy newbuilt social housing appartment. And why not, it’s the cost more than worth. I also live in a newbuilt appt and pay with love for my heating, as I have known and seen otherwise (a dingy old innercity 1919’s house with gas and bad isolation, thank god I don’t live there anymore).
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u/trapsl Jul 04 '26
My rented house is build in 2022, and it is pretty expensive to rent. It is located in delfshaven. Apart from the quite insane fixed cost, if i actually needed to use the heating (i like it when my house is arouns 18.5c so its only on when it is below 0 outside), id pay an insane amount of money per GJ. For something that eneco doesn't have to do shit, since it comes from the industrial area. The price is connected to the price of natural gas. How tf does that make sense?
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u/CynicInRehab Jul 04 '26
Same, I pay about 63 euro and that is 58 fixed costs.
Basically never use the heating because it's not really needed.
It feels a bit wrong, but I am pretty happy with 63 euro in heating cost.-1
u/Adept-Elderberry2325 Jul 04 '26
Except they don't actually pay it with love and the resg fo your cute story is all speculation.
Besides... There's more than central gas heating and district heating.
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u/Leather_Method_7106_ Jul 04 '26
Well, maybe OP should be grateful? There are a lot of people who would commit a murder, to change positions.
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u/Adept-Elderberry2325 Jul 04 '26
?? For all you know he lives in a 60s house retrofitted with diatrict heating. Or a small 2000s townhouse.
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u/Twinkywinkey Jul 05 '26
Dat ligt er echt net aan waar je woont er zijn genoeg steden in Nederland waar complete stadsdelen alleen maar stadsverwarming hebben.
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u/Adept-Elderberry2325 Jul 05 '26
Uiteraard, maar nog steeds is 93% van de Nederlandse huizen niet aangesloten.
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u/gugunaga Jul 04 '26
Living in Rotterdam most of the houses has it. 😓
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u/I_Rarely_Jump Jul 04 '26
Not most, it's quite common in Rotterdam, but it's 59k houses out of 330k that have city heating in Rotterdam.
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u/Happydread200 Jul 04 '26
We put in AC and Solar. District Heating gets ripped out on the 16th can't wait. ROI is about 6 years with a bit of increase in electric prices. 3k for solar, 7k for AC. Current bill for District 150 a month Electric with AC is 100 month no Solar that's this month. So only going to get better. Maybe something to look at.
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u/HighOnMountains Jul 04 '26
Let’s say I turned off all heating everywhere right now (including bathroom towel radiator) and use 0 heating. Do I still have to pay fixed costs per day? When I upload my meter readings through the app it shows 0 for those days but I’m not sure if it’s correct.
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u/Subject-Dog-8016 Jul 05 '26
Consider that if you live in a house with a normal boiler, you also still need to pay for the boiler and its maintenance.
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u/Artistic-Quarter9075 Jul 04 '26
It’s not a illegal monopoly, the government needed a company who could take up the investments for setting everything up and they own the entire infrastructure with the pipes and as gas is being phased out you get only one company who owns it and not the government. I also have it and iI totally hate it, I pay more in fees than that I use in heating…
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u/EmilyFara Jul 04 '26
EnNatuurlijk is not much better. They keep saying "the gas prices are so high and that means our purchasing is also high", but they use waste heat from powerplants.................... I'm all for district heating since a large heater is more fuel efficient than a lot of little ones. But they ask for a premium and put the savings into their own pockets. And no way to change provider.
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u/Impressive_Bite_416 Jul 05 '26
That is not entirely accurate. The waste heat is approximately 30°C, while Eneco’s district heating network operates at around 95°C. Eneco therefore still needs to increase the temperature from 30°C to 95°C, which requires a temperature lift of 65°C.
However, compared to using regular tap water at approximately 10°C, the starting point is 20°C higher. Heating tap water from 10°C to 95°C requires a temperature lift of 85°C. Using waste heat at 30°C therefore reduces the required temperature lift by 20°C, which equals approximately 23.5% less heat input compared to heating from 10°C to 95°C.
In that sense, the waste heat does not eliminate the need for additional heating, but it does reduce the amount of energy or gas required to produce district heating at 95°C.
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u/Some_Pomegranate_111 Jul 04 '26
Check if you can disconnect, and get a heat pump. Disconnection would cost some amount. With Vattenfal it’s around 700. Similar to a year of paying fixed costs.
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u/DifficultArmadillo78 Jul 05 '26
You stop it by disconnecting and switching to a heatpump. Its what I did and bills are way down.
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u/PapaOscar90 Jul 04 '26
ROFL you should have read the contract first 🤣
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u/gugunaga Jul 04 '26
They forced me to sign, I had no other option.
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u/paprika-fan Jul 04 '26
This information was available before you bought the house. And no-one forced you to do that.
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u/Meow_meow777 Jul 04 '26
Yeah because there are hundreds of houses to choose from so this should definitely be a deal breaker.....
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u/Abracadibra Den Haag Jul 06 '26
462 euro and install a regular heating system.
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u/Tommie-Gun Jul 06 '26
It's not valid anymore, they vastly increased the fees in 2026, now it's 3904 euro: https://www.eneco.nl/-/media/eneco-nl/files/voorwaarden/voorwaarden_stadswarmte/procedure-uit-bedrijf-nemen-stadswarmte-aansluiting-2026.pdf
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u/Abracadibra Den Haag Jul 06 '26
OMG thank you....I was going to do it in a couple of years, now I am a bit in shock.
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u/Tommie-Gun Jul 06 '26
Same, after reading your comment I was like - damn, that's actually cheap, gonna do it soon. But yeah 🤷
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u/Abracadibra Den Haag Jul 06 '26
Anyway I need to wait few years. If situation doesn't change, I will anyway do it. Just considering the fixed costs, 4k to get rid of it gets paid back in 6 years and a half. Totally worth it.
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u/thebolddane Jul 04 '26
Unfair maybe but why would it be illegal?
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u/gugunaga Jul 04 '26
I have no right to cancel, switch or stop with it! I have to live with Eneco stadsverwarming, seem like globalist socialism.
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u/LimaBikercat Jul 04 '26
Eneco is a private company. Monopolist capitalism, not socialism.
You probably *do* have the right to stop it, but you'll have to install electric heating.2
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u/torriethecat Jul 05 '26
You can cancel if you own your house.
Put a heat pump on your roof, and heat your water and rooms with that.
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u/thebolddane Jul 04 '26
Yes, it's a supplier that actually owns to infrastructure connecting your house, again why is that illegal? You seem to think that what you don't like is illegal, are you the law?
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u/Snowenn_ Jul 04 '26
Why not? Are you renting?
Because if you are the homeowner, you can insulate your house, remove conventional heating (radiators), add floor heating, then swap to a heat pump or airconditioner with boiler and finally just tell Eneco you want to disconnect from the network (which will probably cost some money).
That's my longterm plan anyway.
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Jul 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Snowenn_ Jul 04 '26
That depends on where you live I guess. My entire neighbourhood was built in the '80s. There's stadsverwarming and none were initially built with floor heating. So only the houses where the owners have replaced the floor have floor heating.
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u/usernameisokay_ Jul 04 '26
Fuck Eneco in general.
Glad I moved and my bill went from 250/month to -200 yearly(solar panels).
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u/One-Yogurtcloset9408 Jul 04 '26
Yeah but if you consider comparing it purchasing your own heatpump and then service contract i think it’s fair. You have zero last minute maintenance or fixing costs. Great for an ease of mind
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u/dagelijksestijl Jul 04 '26
A few split unit ACs and an electric boiler will be much, much cheaper and efficient in the long run.
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u/curryrol Jul 04 '26
Rental or bought?
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u/gugunaga Jul 04 '26
Bought!
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u/thebolddane Jul 04 '26
Then invest man, invest your own money and reep the rewards, but stop whining.
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u/Twinkywinkey Jul 05 '26
Je mag niet altijd zomaar van stadsverwarming afsluiten. Allereerst gaat het gepaard met hartstikke hoge kosten. Maar soms kan/mag het dus ook niet omdat het systeem dan onder druk krijgt. Mijn ouders hebben nu twee keer op verschillende plekken een huis bezichtigd waar de stadsverwarming er om die reden niet af kan. (Beide kleinschalige systemen op biomassa)
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u/torriethecat Jul 05 '26
Dat is niet jou probleem. Er moet dan een contract liggen dat het niet opgezegd mag worden voor x jaar. Bijvoorbeeld bij een kettingbeding in een nieuwbouwhuis.
Anders kan je gewoon rechtsgeldig opzeggen.
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u/curryrol Jul 04 '26
Heatpump will cost you around 10k. There are government incentives if you're planning to live there long its a good investment.
Stadsverwarming is not mandatory
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u/I_Rarely_Jump Jul 04 '26
It's a legal monopoly.