Power to the People

In search of
community capacity

The energy crisis shows that energy availability and affordability are the foundation of our way of life and economy. Ownership of that foundation will have to be regained. This movement is also necessary to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society.

Observation

1. Volewijck. Percentage of social housing is higher than the average in Amsterdam; 2. IJsselbuurt
The percentage of private rental properties is higher than the average in Amsterdam; 3. Slotervaart Noord
Mixed neighbourhood with rental and owner-occupied homes. Proximity to heat sources.

Sources:
Most vulnerable (per neighborhood): BBGA 2020
Energy labels: RVO 2022
Gas consumption (per postal code): CBS 2021
Percentage of rental properties: CBS 2021
Number of residents: CBS 2021

In the last two years, the energy transition has been overtaken by an energy crisis. Anyone searching for the term energy crisis on the website of Het Parool will find almost two hundred articles, almost all of which originate in the last two years. They show that energy is one of the most important components of our way of life. If the cheap availability disappears, residents, entrepreneurs, and social facilities will immediately be in trouble.

Amsterdam has a history of civil unrest. The protests against the dominance of the car shaped Amsterdam’s reputation as a bicycle city and the Nieuwmarkt riots prevented further demolition of the historic neighbourhood. The housing protests have partly led to the rental market being regulated more strongly. The first cautious protests against the slow action of the housing corporations in making the housing stock more sustainable have already taken place. Will the fire be fanned further?

The three party playing field and the Cooperative Neighbourhood Company

The energy system in society is now organised as a two-party playing field. The field is dominated by the market and the government, while the resident or citizen stands by and as a consumer has only limited influence.

We need to move towards a three-party playing field where the citizenry itself participates in the game. The citizen, resident or neighbourhood community becomes an active player who not only consumes but also produces. Citizens bundle their capacity and investment capacity on an equal basis with the market and the government to accelerate the energy transition.

We propose to utilise the neighbourhood capacity by setting up a cooperative neighbourhood company. This implements measures that contribute to sustainability and energy transition, independently of ownership, with and for the neighbourhood. The transition is accelerated, the community is strengthened.

The neighbourhood company is, as the name suggests, a company of and for the neighbourhood. It works together with the local community and with existing initiatives. Both the community and the more institutional parties (such as the municipality, housing corporations, institutional property managers) provide capacity in the form of time, money, space and/or knowledge to the neighbourhood company. The neighbourhood company will have the legal form of a cooperative. This gives the neighbourhood company the space to act both socially and entrepreneurially.

Case studies

We illustrate the operation of the neighbourhood company using three Amsterdam neighbourhoods where gas consumption is high, energy labels are low, the share of rental properties (and therefore the share of single glazing) is high, and many residents are extra vulnerable to the consequences of rising energy prices given their average income level.

Case study IJsselbuurt

The IJsselbuurt, a monumental district of about a hundred years old, has many homes with a poor energy status. Many homes have a low energy label, which makes sustainability difficult due to the monumental status of the buildings. Insulation and sustainable measures such as solar panels are often impossible without damaging the neighborhood’s aesthetic value. The residents’ fragmented ownership and limited resources make sustainability even more difficult. That is why the neighborhood company wants to insulate the homes block by block, with all residents contributing financially via a neighborhood fund. This fund is used to purchase materials and pay labor costs. The neighborhood company also offers training and tools. The sustainability is financed by energy savings, without homeowners having to invest in advance. Residents can also help by providing one-off working hours, with guidance and training to support the process.

A revolving fund is fed by the energy savings of the residents and can be used to make the building more sustainable.

Spatial context

Case study Slotervaard Noord

The transition vision for heat assumes different systems, depending on the type of building, degree of insulation, density and space in the subsurface. For a large part of Amsterdam, such as Slotervaart-Noord, a connection to a heating network powered by residual heat from industry is provided. Without having to wait for the planning of the construction of the heating network, other, low-grade sources in the immediate vicinity can also be used. Certainly if the homes are sufficiently insulated, these environmental sources provide heat for a large number of households.

The district company in Slotervaart-Noord continues to build on the idea of the local energy cooperative. In this case, the District Company will focus on developing a decentralised heating network under its management. It starts by connecting sources and needs that are close to each other. Step by step, this decentralised heating network will grow into a neighbourhood-wide infrastructure that can ultimately also be linked to the central heating network.

Partly due to the presence of the Sloterplas, supplemented by a diverse range of smaller sources, sufficient ambient heat is available. By creating an open low temperature network, all these heat suppliers can also be connected to the heating network. This creates a flexible network that can provide this neighbourhood with sustainable heat.

Various heat sources can be connected to the open low-temperature network.In Amsterdam Nieuw-West,these sources mainly consist of surface water,data centers and slaughterhouses.

Case Study Volewijck

The task in the Van der Pek neighbourhood in Noord is different. Here, there is already a plan for the roll-out of the heating network in the short term. Due to years of lack of attention from the central city for the communities of Noord, the maintenance backlog and the oppression of existing residents by the rapidly rising house prices, the confidence of residents in the municipality, energy company, housing association and other institutional parties is particularly low.
To achieve a transition, this confidence will first have to be restored.
To get started with all these available capacities, the organization of the neighbourhood is necessary. The establishment of a neighbourhood company is a first step. Both the community and the more institutional parties provide capacity in time, money, space or knowledge to the neighbourhood company. The neighbourhood company then works on the insulation of the homes, independently of ownership, and the use of local sources for sustainable heat. The social infrastructure of the neighbourhood offers the neutral space for the community, institutions, and market to shape the neighbourhood company together.

The social infrastructure provides space as a so-called ‘third place’ for an equal conversation between institutional parties and the communi

This research-by-design was part of a publication of Stad-Forum. Stad-Forum is an independent think tank that has advised the Amsterdam’s city council on urban development over the past decade. Stad-Forum did this on its own initiative or at the request of the mayor and alderpersons. It held a mirror up to Amsterdam, offered residents and experts a platform and connected them with civil servants and politicians.

The full publication ‘Nu aan de Buurt’ can be downloaded here