Heat Transition Vision
In 2021, the municipality drafted a general plan outlining how Voorschoten will transition from natural gas to sustainable heat in the future: the Heat Transition Vision. The main goal of this vision is for the municipality of Voorschoten to be CO₂-neutral by 2050. This is a mandate from the national government that every municipality must carry out. In 2021, the Voorschoten City Council adopted the Heat Transition Vision 1.0. This was followed in 2024 by the Heat Transition Vision 1.1. Based on what we know today, these documents outline how and under what conditions we intend to achieve this goal. At least every five years, an updated Heat Transition Vision will be issued, based on the latest national policies, innovations, and technical and financial insights.
For each neighborhood, the report identifies the most logical sustainable heat sources to switch to. It also specifies when—between now and 2050—a neighborhood could make that switch. In addition, we assessed for each neighborhood whether an interim solution would be a good idea, such as home insulation, energy conservation, or switching to a hybrid heat pump (which uses significantly less natural gas).
Our guiding principle is that we only work on solutions we won’t regret later. Over the coming years, we’ll develop these into more concrete implementation plans on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, or for groups of housing units that go well together. We’ve already started work in the first neighborhood: the Krimwijk.
Participation
The municipality could not and did not want to develop the heating vision on its own, so it asked residents, business owners, housing authorities, organizations, and other partners to contribute their ideas. More than 600 residents shared their opinions and ideas. We used these to create the first roadmap leading up to 2050.
More than 575 residents completed the questionnaire on the heating transition vision. The residents indicated what they consider important in this regard, what questions they have, and what they see as key conditions for a solution. We then organized a workshop for more than 75 residents. There, we explored in greater depth what is possible in each neighborhood and what the path forward should look like through 2050.
Read the summary of all the ideas collected and the step-by-step plan.
Update
We will update the Heating Transition Plan as needed, at least every five years. For example, if new insights or improved technologies emerge, or if prices change. We will continue to do so until 2050, when the entire municipality will be natural gas-free. In 2024, the city council adopted the Heat Transition Vision 1.1. In this updated vision, we group homes by housing type, rather than according to the neighborhood classifications used by Statistics Netherlands (CBS), as was the case in the first Heat Transition Vision. We also take an even closer look at which heating solution best suits each group of homes.