The cabinet is struggling to find a solution for people who have a common boiler, known as block heating.

Your shared boiler distributes the heat to all residents. The price cap that the government has devised to help people is not a solution for them because they all consume far more than the average family. Above the price cap, the market price for energy applies.

According to the Dutch Consumption-Based Energy Association, there are 600,000 households with block heating in the Netherlands. This mainly applies to large apartments that were built in the 1960s, but many other residential groups also have this type of connection.

“These are often old apartments that have such heating,” explains MP Pieter Omtzigt. “Often apartments where people with lower incomes live. If you want to ensure that people do not fall below the subsistence level, you simply have to help this group.”

The problem occurs, for example, in the Oud-Charlois district of Rotterdam, where there is a shared flat with artists and self-employed people in the cultural sector. They now pay about 35 euros per household in energy costs, soon the average will be 200 euros.

“At first we thought: that’s a nice arrangement with this upper price limit,” says resident Nathan van der Meijden. “Then we realized that we live in a form of living that doesn’t really belong. We feel forgotten.”

And this is what the whole community is struggling with:

Local residents are looking for ways to cut costs, but it’s difficult. Precisely because a lot has been done in recent years to make it more sustainable. “We have solar panels, everything is very well insulated,” says Nienke de Wijk, who takes over the administration on behalf of the residential group. “Well no, consumption can’t be much lower here. Except that we stop showering.”

MP Omtzigt’s proposal to also help people in such situations was accepted by a majority in the House of Representatives. But the big question is: What about the effect?

ChristenUnie is thinking of a fixed amount per inhabitant. “One solution for November and December could be: giving back 190 euros per month to everyone who has combined heat and power plants,” says Pieter Grinwis from ChristenUnie. That’s just not ideal, he admits, “because then there’s no incentive to use less energy.”

Fast decision making

There are also practical problems. For example, no authority has good information about who has combined heat and power plants. Energy suppliers don’t know, for example, whether a lot of electricity is being consumed at a connection because someone has a swimming pool or because a hundred people are using it. Municipalities and the tax and customs administration say that they do not have this information ready either.

According to Omtzigt, the fact that such questions were not sufficiently considered has to do with the fast decision-making process. “If you have to figure out something in three days that will work for 8 million homes, you make mistakes. Then you forget about district heating and combined heat and power plants. Making a good plan only takes a few months.”

The cabinet has promised to present a proposal shortly on how these people can still be helped.