One year later: Gas free 18^th century heritage building renovation

Disconnecting an 18^th century Amsterdam canal house from its gas connection without increasing the size of its electricity connection is no small task. We’ve already covered the full story in a previous article, but since then the building has been occupied by its commercial tenants and the energy consultants have had a chance to see the real world performance of the installations.

In keeping with the project’s open source approach, energy specialist Johan Koekkoek from Visietech recently gave a presentation to a range of industry stakeholders, including other energy consultants. The event gave them a chance to share their insights directly with the industry and to discuss how fast the arena is changing as new technologies come to market.

Heritage buildings like this one present a unique challenge for sustainability upgrades because of the restrictions on altering the building’s appearance — which can make insulation a challenge. And simply increasing the size of the electricity connection to increase heating capacity is ineffective if the building itself is not well insulated in the first place. As such, the architects from Architectenbureau Vroom worked hard to find ways to add insulation where possible.

The project saw the installation of a range of energy saving hardware like dual source heat pumps, fan coils, energy buffer tanks, lithium ion battery banks, and a ground source loop drilled in tandem with the foundation reinforcements. And at the core of the project is a software control system which brings all the hardware into one ecosystem, which will allow the team to optimise the building’s energy usage over time as the habits of the commercial tenants are established, and as new smart grid technologies emerge.