Eneco has reached a new milestone in overhauling Utrecht’s heating grid: the large transportation heat pipeline that is being constructed through the city of Utrecht, has passed across the River Vecht at Marnixlaan. This completes the most complicated part of constructing the new pipeline to transmit heat through Utrecht.
Eneco began work in 2021 to lay this pipeline along a new route, from the heating plant by the Merwede canal to Eneco’s substation in Overvecht. Thanks to this large-scale maintenance project, customers of Eneco who are connected to Utrecht’s heating grid will have a reliable and sustainable heat supply during the years ahead.
The pipeline had already been drilled and laid under various streets, and on Monday it was lowered into the Vecht using an ‘inverted siphon’: a metal pipe that runs across the entire width of the riverbed and angles upwards in the riverbanks to connect to the other sections of the pipeline.
The new pipeline will replace the existing connection to the Overvecht substation, which has reached the end of its lifespan. The route of the new pipeline was planned in close consultation with the Utrecht municipal authorities. This made it possible for projects above the ground and in the ground to be carried out at the same time. For example, Utrecht redesigned Westelijke Stadsboulevard, and Eneco’s work was combined with a project to reconstruct various streets and making them greener. The occasion was also seized to lower the speed limit in several streets to 30km per hour.
The portion of the pipeline beyond the Marnixbrug bridge will be replaced one-on-one, starting in April 2025. The plan is to complete the heat pipeline by the end of summer 2025. It will be connected to Eneco’s substation in Overvecht, where Eneco recently also connected the largest heat pump in the Netherlands. This final phase of the work will not cause any hindrance for the residents of Overvecht-Zuid: their heating and hot water connections will not be interrupted.