Green Whale

Graft-De Rijp is a unique part of the Netherlands. The municipality has many historical buildings from the period between 1600 and 1800, when economic prosperity came largely from whaling. The whale was given a place in the coat of arms of Graft-De Rijp and is now also returning in De Groene Walvis, an ambitious project in the field of making homes more sustainable that was initiated by Energie Coöperatie Graft.

The aim of the research project is to find out whether Graft and De Rijp can stop using natural gas by switching to hydrogen produced locally using sustainable energy sources such as solar and wind energy.

The generation of sustainable energy takes place in the following five steps:

1. Generating green electricity with solar and wind energy. The generation is done with the help of solar panels and wind catchers.
2. The generated energy is converted into hydrogen using electrolysis.
3. Creating a safe storage for the hydrogen. Because the demand is not constant, a safe storage location will have to be taken into account.
4. Supplying hydrogen via Liander's network to homes and buildings. 
5. Investigate whether heating equipment needs to be adapted or replaced when using hydrogen.