Leeuwarden has been awarded three European subsidies

The city of Leeuwarden is on a roll! The city has recently been awarded two subsidies from Interreg North West Europe and one from Interreg North Sea Region for energy poverty, climate adaptation and aquathermal energy projects: SCEPA, IB Green and Water Warmth.

Scaling up the Energy Poverty Approach (SCEPA)

The SCEPA project focuses on tackling energy poverty by exchanging and scaling up existing solutions and tools. Leeuwarden wants to use SCEPA to scale up the activities of Energieloket Leeuwarden. This is the municipal information and advice desk about energy saving and making homes more sustainable. By scaling up the activities of the energy support service, the city aims to support residents experiencing energy poverty to implement energy-saving measures. Eight European partners are involved in this project, which will run until the end of 2027.

IB Green

IB Green stands for Industrial and Business parks Green. The project revolves around greening and making industrial areas resilient to the consequences of climate change. Leeuwarden has the ambition to make business park De Hemrik greener and thus reduce the risk of flooding and heat stress. In addition, the renaturation should increase the biodiversity, the appearance and the economic attractiveness of the business park. The subsidy helps Leeuwarden with the greening of the parts of De Hemrik that are owned by the municipality and to attract a “greening coach” to support local companies in greening their sites. IB Green includes eleven European partners and runs until October 2026.

Water Warmth

In collaboration with the Dutch energy cooperative Grieneko, Leeuwarden will set up a pilot in which a primary school and five houses will be linked to an aquathermal system. Grieneko is working on a mini heat network that runs on heat from surface water. The cooperative does this together with the municipality of Leeuwarden, five homeowners  and the primary school. Focus is given to extra insulation of the school and houses, heat pumps and a joint heat exchanger in the local waterway. In addition, research is being carried out into how grid congestion can be prevented and what can be done about the warming of the surface water in the summer.

Source: Gemeente Leeuwarden