Net-conscious building? Frisian builder Dijkstra Draisma was already gaining experience with it when grid congestion was hardly called a problem. In project Buurblok, residents share electricity, heat and two cars. "We needed a battery and this was by far the cheapest solution," explains Wietse de Vries of the innovative construction company. "When we will cross the Frisian border with this? Find locations first."
Wietse de Vries is innovation manager at Dijkstra Draisma and knows how to build net-consciously. Time for an interview about the so-called Neighbor Block. Dick van Ginkel, innovation manager at TBI Woonlab also talks along. His expectations are high: "I think Buurblok can become a very nice export product of the province of Friesland."
Read the story below or listen to the podcast here
Do they still suffer from grid congestion in Friesland?
De Vries: "Haha. Of course. We also suffer from the fact that connections to the power grid are incredibly late. As a construction company, though, we are busy thinking about solutions."
You're referring to Neighborhood Block?
"Definitely."
Back to the drawing board for a moment. What exactly is Buurblok?
De Vries: "A technical and financial innovation. The leasing concept is the financial side of the story, and from the technical side we looked at how to supply the homes with heat and electricity with as few installations as possible, so that their load on the grid is as low as possible."
How do you build net-conscious?
"In short, we heat 10 homes with one heat pump; in addition, we share electricity. Two electric cars provide the required battery capacity. For 13 cents per kilometer, residents can use those sharing cars. But because those cars are secretly gone quite often, we also ended up putting a battery in the unit itself."
What do the homes look like?
"Just like our other homes, the houses in Neighborhood Block are fully dismantleable. Only the distribution board is slightly larger. At an outside temperature of -3 degrees, the well-insulated houses need a thermal power of 'only' 1.7 kW. In Drachten we are now going to do something similar with 40 homes."
So in addition to being a construction company, you are also a heat and electricity supplier?
"Anyway, you can think of us as a heat supplier, we have been for some time. We have several escos (energy service company) on our balance sheet. We have pvt panels on the roof in combination with two ground source heat pumps. Electricity supplier we are not. We don't have a permit for that either."
What was the biggest challenge for this yet unusual approach?
"The deployment of two shared cars. The choice for that was very simple, because we had to have battery capacity to handle the peaks. The cheapest way was to buy a used Tesla. Take the wheels out and you have a battery. But we said, leave those wheels underneath and let residents actually use the cars, completely new to us. The experiences have been positive. The only problem at one point was that the cars are used so often that we still had to install a "solitary" battery. Incidentally, the Tesla became a Kona."
Who is this solution good for?
"For the resident, the landlord and for us. For the resident because they have a very low energy bill, for the landlord who can still add homes this way, and for us because we can again bring new knowledge into our toolbox."
Why are you not yet applying this concept outside of Friesland?
"Because we want to do the first projects with housing corporation WoonFriesland. We are extremely busy with that, because even in Friesland, locations are scarce. Are housing corporations queuing up? Yes, but they also find it exciting. Talking to the real estate department of housing corporations is like talking to a turkey about Christmas dinner. Leasing a home is not commonplace. So corporations have to get used to that, too."
You think this is a solution to grid congestion. How do grid operators view it?
"When we started Buurblok a few years ago, grid congestion was hardly a problem. So the grid operators involved didn't see the urgency of it then either. Indeed: When we asked for one central connection, I was immediately called by Alliander... A connection for ten homes? That's just not going to happen."
Wondering how this story ends? Listen to the latest episode of podcast Bureau Stoer here
Office Tough
Episode 6: Dossier Net Congestion | A Friesian construction company's solution
With: Wietse de Vries, innovation manager at Dijkstra Draisma and Dick van Ginkel, innovation manager TBI Woonlab
Presentation: Thomas van Belzen
Montage: Kalynda Haaf (HaafVisual)
Photo | Dijkstra Draisma
Listen to previous episodes of Bureau Stoer here
Episode 5: 'Water congestion is home builders' next nightmare'
Episode 4: 'Grid congestion is a theoretical problem'
Episode 3: The ever-increasing mountain of objectors
Episode 2: Dossier CO2-neutral building | 'Installation-free building is the future'
Episode 1: 'Bureau Stoer is not a glorification of Friso de Zeeuw'
About Bureau Stoer
Bureau Stoer is a weekly, investigative and curious podcast about dossiers that frustrate future area development. Three thinkers of the future and a journalist, together with different experts each time, bite into numerous headache files, such as grid congestion, CO2, nitrogen, climate adaptation and sufficient drinking water connections.
The acronym "Stoer" stands for a built environment that is Smart, Future-Focused, Enterprising, Honest and Realistic. Bureau Stoer aims not only to address and analyze problems, but also to help solve them.
Bureau Stoer's core team consists of three experts in the fields of housing, construction and area development. They are Nicole Maarsen (housing acceleration table, digitalization, smart cities), Dick van Ginkel (TBI innovation manager, regulatory expert) and Jan Willem van de Groep (bio-based building, power accelerator, innovation). The presentation is in the hands of Thomas van Belzen, editor-in-chief of Construction & Installation at the Jaarbeurs.
Tips or comments
Do you have tips for files that Bureau Stoer should get stuck into? Do you have a problem you want to bring to their attention, a solution or an expert? Then send an email to Bureaustoer@jaarbeurs.nl.
