Except for one electricity cable, the house of Hans Cevat and Wanda Torrenga in Frederiksoord is self-sufficient. If it is up to the inventors of the innovative heat storage system, they will soon be able to do without utilities altogether.
Hans Cevat and Wanda Torrenga from Frederiksoord are used to pioneering. They have been living in one of the 52 modern colony houses between Frederiksoord and Wilhelminaoord for almost three years now. They are delighted that they will be the first to use a brand new heat storage system next summer. And the creators? They think this could be a solution for all of us. After all, we are increasingly generating heat, but storing and reusing it is not yet very successful.
Communicating Vessels
The province of Drenthe, the municipality of Westerveld and the Society of Welfare – the site owner – are extremely enthusiastic about the trial. Next to the house of Cevat and Torrenga and their immediate neighbors on the Hooiweg, a large barn of 4 by 10 meters will be built in the coming months, with an ingenious system of – literally – communicating vessels and vacuum tubes that collect and distribute heat. Costs: currently more than 200,000 euros, but hopefully soon on the market for between 30,000 and 40,000 euros.
The modern colony house of Cevat and Torrenga is already almost self-sufficient. They have a heat pump, solar panels and use geothermal energy. The waste water is purified and stored and is suitable for toilet, laundry and garden.
In a separate circuit, a system with UV light purifies rainwater so that it can be drunk. They are not completely self-sufficient yet. There is one more electricity cable that crosses it. “And we would like to get rid of that,” says Wanda Torrenga enthusiastically.
Hydrogen off the table
The entrepreneurs Hilco Broekman of the construction company of the same name from Nijensleek and his partner-in-crime, installer Arend Sjabbens from Diever, have been involved in the colony homes 2.0 from the very beginning. For the past five years they have worked hard to find a solution to this last problem. It took a lot of headaches and free hours, the men say at the kick-off of the test on Tuesday.
After testing and talking about hydrogen, that idea is off the table. Never feasible for a wide audience, they think. Then they discover the Groningen company Suwotech, which is working on thermal storage based on water, layered vessels and with vacuum tubes that capture and conduct heat. A test set-up in Rotterdam is already running, but the idea has never been applied to a private house.
Cable gone?
This summer, the installations at the house of Torrenga and Cevat and their immediate neighbors must run. The required heat then enters the house from the shed through an insulated pipe. The operation of the system and energy consumption in the home are carefully monitored. Broekman and Sjabbens think they will know for sure next year whether they have indeed discovered the egg of Colombus and they hope so. “We really believe in this,” says Broekman.
And that power cord? The question is whether it can really be cut if the system works. “Actually, we still need a windmill in the garden with a small battery…”, Broekman begins. Laughing: “But Wanda does not want to do that.”