I once lived in a building where every morning the double flush of the upstairs neighbour’s toilet trip reverberated loudly through our kitchen. Now, instead of being a source of heated neighbourly relations, Dutch sewage waste is being seen as a reliable heat source for millions of homes that the government wants to be unhooked from the country’s gas system by 2050.
Lieven de Key, a housing corporation in Amsterdam, is planning what is believed to be the first sewer warmth project that will tap into a main district sewage pipe to warm 1,600 existing social and student homes. After the Dutch words for sewer, riool, and warmth, this sustainable, 24/7, year round heat source is dubbed riothermie.
