06 Energy transition

Global warming is a threat with consequences that impact many different aspects of our lives. Burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas produces large amounts of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. We can significantly reduce these emissions by switching to sustainable energy sources. The EU has set itself the target of emitting at least 55% less greenhouse gases by 2030 compared to the 1990 emission levels, as a step towards achieving climate neutrality by 2050.

With this in mind, we are building a broad portfolio of projects in the area of hydrogen, carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), and heat. The first projects are currently under construction. We regularly adjust our investment portfolio to align with market supply and demand and to lead times for the permitting process.

Given that Gasunie sells natural gas transmission and storage capacity to third parties, Gasunie’s cash flow is predictable. How much revenue we are allowed to generate from this core business is determined annually by the regulatory authorities in the Netherlands and Germany, i.e. ACM and BNetzA respectively. In determining this, they consider the infrastructure management and maintenance costs incurred by Gasunie today and over the coming decades.

The energy transition will eventually take away the need for natural gas imports, storage and transmission, which are Gasunie’s current sources of income. We believe that a significant part of the new energy transmission systems we build will fall under a regulatory regime, either immediately or at a later time, which, as long as good, stable regulatory frameworks are put in place, will enable healthy operations. We are reducing the operational risk posed by infrastructure that does not fall under regulation by endeavouring to conclude long-term contracts.

Porthos

The construction of the Porthos pipeline, compressor station and cooling-water pump station started in 2024. The construction of the offshore pipeline and the work on the offshore platform will get underway in 2025. We expect Porthos to become operational in 2026. The European Union has designated Porthos – an initiative of the Port of Rotterdam Authority, EBN and Gasunie – as a Project of Common Interest and the project has been awarded € 102 million from the Connecting Europe Facility.

Porthos customers Shell, ExxonMobil, Air Liquide and Air Products will feed CO₂ into the 30 km long open-access pipeline that will soon run through the Rotterdam port area. The CO₂ will be transported via the offshore pipeline to the existing platform in the North Sea, located approximately 20 kilometres off the coast. From there the CO₂ will be pumped into depleted gas fields located in sealed spaces of porous sandstone located more than 3 kilometres under the seabed of the North Sea. Porthos will store around 2.5 Mt of CO₂ per year over a period of 15 years, for a total of about 37 Mt. This will soon cut industrial emissions at the Port of Rotterdam by around 10%.

Aramis

Aramis is a similar project to Porthos, but its annual processing capacity will be 22 Mt, making Aramis the largest CCS project in north-western Europe. Aramis can make use of the over-dimensioning of the Porthos onshore pipeline, which can transport up to 10 Mt of CO₂ per year. The draft project decision for the Aramis project as well as a number of other draft decisions and the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report were published in 2024.

CO₂next

The CO₂next terminal located at the Port of Rotterdam will soon be able to receive liquid CO₂ by ship or train from customers who are not connected to a pipeline. CO₂next is set to become a hub that will be accessible to all industries that emit CO₂ and want to supply it for permanent storage (CCS) in the empty gas fields under the North Sea or, in the more distant future, for reuse elsewhere (CCU). CO₂next is being developed jointly by Gasunie, Vopak, Shell and TotalEnergies.

In 2024, CO₂next entered the important FEED phase, in which the costs and design of the terminal are determined, the relevant permits are applied for, and contracts are signed with the customers in preparation for the final investment decision planned for 2025.

DRC

The Delta Rhine Corridor (DRC) energy infrastructure project changed course in 2024. The underground pipeline corridor stretching from the Port of Rotterdam to the Dutch province of Limburg and the German border is now initially being constructed for the transport of hydrogen and CO₂, without the HVDC cable or pipelines for ammonia, LPG, natural gas or propylene. This was decided because, otherwise, completion of the corridor would take many years longer than originally planned.

With this decision, the Dutch government, which commissioned the project, is responding positively to the wish of the market that the demand for hydrogen and CO₂ infrastructure be met with greater urgency. Industry needs these pipelines to make it more sustainable in the short term. Thanks to this adjustment, Gasunie expects to be able to commission the CO₂ pipeline in the Delta Rhine Corridor (DRC) between 2032 and 2033. In the case of hydrogen this will be 2033 at the latest.

Construction of the CO₂ pipeline offers the possibility of developing an optimal CO₂ network, one that would facilitate connections with the Dutch provinces of Zeeland, North Brabant and Limburg, the northern region of the Netherlands, and Belgium and Germany. Such a network would facilitate transport of CO₂ from Germany and the Netherlands to storage facilities under the North Sea as well as to current and potential users.

DSC

The Delta Schelde CO₂nnection (DSC) is a planned CO₂ transport pipeline between the industrial clusters of Rotterdam, Moerdijk, Zeeland and the Belgian border. The plan is for the DSC to eventually connect to the Delta Rhine Corridor.

In April 2024, Gasunie launched an Expression of Interest (EOI), through which we gathered more information from potential customers and shippers concerning their interest in CO₂ transport through the DRC and the DSC. The EOI responses received demonstrated that there is more than sufficient demand (up to 45 million kilotonnes per year) for the capacity that the planned CO₂ infrastructure can provide, assuming the DRC and DSC are connected to CO₂ pipelines that will run from the Dutch border to, respectively, the Ruhr and the Antwerp port area.

Hydrogen

The Dutch network

In 2023, Gasunie subsidiary Hynetwork started work on the Netherlands’ national hydrogen network. With this infrastructure we want to help industries in the Netherlands become more sustainable. This will keep the Netherlands high on the list of countries that are an attractive place to do business, which is good for our economy and jobs. Industrial parties need clarity on the roll-out timeline and on when the hydrogen network will be available.

In 2024 it became apparent that Hynetwork’s roll-out plan needed updating: a number of connections will be completed later than we previously assumed. The first part will be put into operation in Rotterdam in 2026 at the latest. Over the years after that, hydrogen transmission infrastructure will become available within various industrial clusters along the Dutch North Sea coast before or in 2030. In that same time frame, the network will be connected from the northern region of the Netherlands to the large-scale HyStock hydrogen storage facility and the first cross-border connections to Germany and (from the province of Zeeland) to Belgium will be made. Between 2031 and 2033, the network will be rolled out across the industrial cluster in Limburg and the various clusters will be connected.

There are various causes for the later-than-planned completion of a number of sections. Due to the reversal of European gas flows since the start of the Ukraine war, for now the ‘IJsselmeer route’ is still needed for the transmission of natural gas and can, therefore, no longer be made available in time for conversion to a section of the hydrogen network. The intention to quickly complete construction of the key west-east connection, the Delta Rhine Corridor, also proved to be unfeasible with multiple modalities at the same time (i.e. high-voltage direct current and ammonia alongside hydrogen and CO₂). Additionally, there have been delays in the permitting process in other areas.

This significantly increases the costs of developing the transmission network. We now estimate the total project costs at € 3.8 billion, compared to an original estimate (from 2021) of € 1.5 billion. The new cost estimate is still surrounded by uncertainty given that the spatial planning and permitting procedures for the transmission network are still ongoing and many costs are still to be incurred. A part of the increase can be attributed to the expansion on the original plan, accounting for approximately € 375 million of the total.

The German network

In 2024, German gas TSOs submitted an application to German regulator BNetzA and received approval for the construction of the Wasserstoff-Kernnetz, the national core transmission network for hydrogen. The parts of this transmission network in north-western Germany are being built by Gasunie Deutschland, under the name Hyperlink. Hyperlink will enable hydrogen transport from the Dutch and Danish borders to demand centres in Germany, such as the Hamburg region, the Bremen region, and the Salzgitter steelworks. The first pipelines will be ready to transport hydrogen as early as 2027/2028. Hyperlink will comprise around 60% repurposed existing pipelines and 40% newly installed pipelines.

In 2024 and 2025, Gasunie is focusing primarily on the construction of the Hyperlink-1 section. This work is progressing well, with the first 150 kilometres completed by year-end 2024. GUD had already started preparing existing natural gas pipelines for future hydrogen transmission in 2023. The main task concerns planning the logistics, arranging the supply of materials, and organising the works – all of which must be done in a very short period – to replace the valves and sections of the pipelines with hydrogen-resistant materials. The first segment in the Hyperlink-1 project, with eight stations, was completed in 2023, and by the end of 2024 the next segment, with 24 stations, had also been successfully adapted.

Once the Hyperlink-1 project has been completed in 2026, the conversion will continue with Hyperlink-2, which will enable, among other things, the supply of hydrogen to the Salzgitter steelworks. A feasibility study has been carried out for this part of the Wasserstoff-Kernnetz, and the first preparatory planning work is being carried out.

Imports

It is expected that demand for hydrogen in the Netherlands and north-western Europe will exceed the forecast local production. For this reason Gasunie is also working on terminals for the import of hydrogen. Rotterdam is becoming a key hub for the import of hydrogen. In addition, a market consultation carried out by Vopak and Gasunie in 2024 showed that the port of Eemshaven can become a key location for the import of hydrogen produced internationally.

Setting up international hydrogen chains is complex and requires considerable public/private cooperation. In view of this, Gasunie and other state-owned companies, in cooperation with the Ministry of Climate Policy and Green Growth and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have been investigating possibilities for fruitful collaborations with parties outside the Netherlands. These efforts led to an agreement between Gasunie and Enagás at the end of 2024 for the development of a value chain for green hydrogen and hydrogen carriers. We are aiming to participate in more international partnerships over the coming years.

Storage

Large-scale storage of hydrogen is crucial for a well-functioning hydrogen market. 
In the Netherlands, Gasunie subsidiary HyStock is making progress on the underground hydrogen storage facility in Zuidwending as part of the HyStock project. In 2024, we secured a supplier for the construction and delivery of compressors and drew up the Environmental Impact Assessment.

In Etzel (Germany), Gasunie and Storag Etzel have been working on the H2CAST pilot project since early 2023, testing hydrogen storage in two small existing caverns. The design for the above-ground installation is ready and construction is underway. Partial filling of the cavern will start early in 2025. In addition, we have signed a contract with Patrizia/Storag Etzel for the development of new caverns in Etzel, with Gasunie conducting the feasibility study.

In the coming years we will continue to work on hydrogen storage at the Zuidwending underground storage facility, which we will do in close contact with local communities, and we will investigate alternatives for storage in other regions in the Netherlands and in Germany.

Offshore

As part of the efforts to achieve the climate targets, the Dutch government is exploring the possibility of having 70 GW of offshore wind energy capacity built by 2050. The intention is that a portion of the electricity generated offshore in the North Sea be converted, also offshore, into green hydrogen. Gasunie will soon be responsible for the transmission of offshore hydrogen, like it is for onshore hydrogen right now.

We are investigating whether the existing offshore natural gas pipelines can be reused so that we can build a network that will last for decades at the lowest possible social cost. We will also take particular account of the ecological carrying capacity of the North Sea: it is the explicit wish that the network be nature inclusive and nature enhancing where possible. In addition, at Gasunie we are setting up international connections from our network to meet the need for hydrogen in the Netherlands and the rest of north-western Europe, with the aim of becoming a European energy hub.

In 2024, several major developments came together. In June, Minister Jetten (at that time the Minister of Climate Policy and Energy) asked Gasunie to take the first steps towards an offshore hydrogen network. The Minister also announced two offshore demonstration projects, Demo 1 and Demo 2. Demo 1 is an offshore hydrogen production project aiming for a production capacity of up to 50 MW. Public funding will be made available, and in 2025 a consortium will be selected to carry out the project. Demo 2 is the next step along the pathway to the large-scale production of offshore hydrogen. Though Gasunie will not play a role in developing hydrogen production through electrolysis, it is closely involved in both Demo projects in the area of developing the infrastructure that will bring hydrogen to shore.

Heat

In 2024, major steps were taken in the development and construction of the WarmtelinQ pipeline. For the Vlaardingen-The Hague section, all of the underground pipelines for the heat networks in the municipalities of Midden-Delfland, Delft and Rijswijk have now been installed, and a large portion of them in Vlaardingen and The Hague as well. The construction of the pumping station in Delft is progressing, and we are working together with the Dutch energy company Eneco on the heat transfer stations in Vlaardingen and The Hague. Gasunie and Eneco are aiming to have district heating in The Hague running on heat delivered through WarmtelinQ from the 2026/2027 heating season at the latest.

The construction of the Rijswijk-Leiden pipeline section has been delayed. Talks with the contractors are taking longer than expected. The main reason for this is that the costs are coming out higher than initially thought. In our discussions, we focus on technical optimisation and ways to reduce costs. Our aim is to complete this project within the possibilities of the provincial zoning amendment plan, the associated EIA, and the permits already granted. The new timeline is not yet known but we do expect to be able to share it later this year.

As for the Rijswijk-Leiden section, in the summer of 2024 the Zuid-Holland Provincial Executive adopted the provincial zoning amendment plan and the Environmental Impact Assessment Report. With the signing of a contract with Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Rotterdam for land lease at the Vondelingenplaat industrial area, WarmtelinQ secured the next step in the implementation. For the Vondelingenplaat-Vlaardingen section, the contractor was selected in 2024 through an EU public procurement procedure. The contractor started preparatory work at the end of 2024.

The municipal councils of Leiden, Voorschoten and Vlaardingen see opportunities for WarmtelinQ; letters of intent for the installation of ‘split Ts’ were concluded with members of the municipal councils for these municipalities in 2024. These branch connections will soon make it possible to transport heat from the Port of Rotterdam to local district heating networks. With the waste heat WarmtelinQ will soon be transporting from the Port of Rotterdam to The Hague and Leiden, 120,000 homes can be heated, saving 123 million cubic metres of natural gas annually. To put it into perspective, the savings achieved through WarmtelinQ are comparable to those of 1,100 football pitches (740 hectares) of solar panels or 100 of the most technologically advanced onshore wind turbines.

Biomethane

The power of biomethane (also called ‘green gas’) is that it is ‘home grown’: this fuel is derived from products we would otherwise throw away, like leftover food from the supermarket or manure and sludge from livestock farming and agriculture. Using this renewable fuel makes us less dependent on energy from other countries. Biomethane is also simple to transport and store using our existing natural gas infrastructure, making it a practical, sustainable solution for making homes and businesses more energy efficient, even when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. And biomethane can be used directly without having to make any adjustments to the central heating boiler or gas stove, for example. This makes it a perfect solution for heritage buildings in city centres, for example, where other types of energy such as solar or hydrogen are not an option.

Dutch Climate Agreement

Under the Dutch Climate Agreement, the Netherlands has set itself the target of producing 2 bcm of biomethane annually in the years following 2030; this is currently around 0.30 bcm. Gasunie sees many opportunities for market parties to scale up the production of biomethane and wants to help this along by facilitating the feed-in of biomethane into the Gasunie network. This is where the biomethane booster comes in, as it can up the pressure of the biomethane in the regional grid to the level required for the national grid. Gasunie is also helping to develop the gasification technology needed to produce larger volumes of biomethane. Gasunie is active in two projects for this purpose, Eemsgas and SKW Alkmaar. Gasunie also supports the sector by advocating for the biomethane blending obligation, by certifying biomethane, and by actively participating in the Dutch Green Gas Platform and the European Biogas Association.

Collector pipeline

Gasunie is working on a project that will see 60 km of natural gas pipeline running between Emmen and Ommen repurposed for the transmission of locally produced biomethane for feed-in to the Gasunie network. This requires a number of technical adjustments at existing Gasunie valve locations and on connections with the regional networks. This includes the installation of a biomethane booster. We are working on three connections to the biomethane gathering pipeline for the regional grid operators Rendo (in and around Coevorden) and Coteq (in and around Hardenberg).

EemsGas

In 2024, as developers of the EemsGas project, Gasunie and Perpetual Next worked on the continuity of the project. Based on the newly selected technology, preparations are now underway for the new FEED study and an application for a Dutch Energy and Climate Innovation Demonstration (DEI+) grant. The plan is to start the FEED study in 2025 and then work towards an investment decision.

Alkmaar SCW gasification plant

The supercritical water gasification (SCW) plant in Alkmaar operated by SCW Systems has already fed 55,000 m³ of biomethane into Gasunie’s high-pressure network over several test periods. Given the number of operating hours achieved, in 2024 we decided to make adjustments to several parts of the plant to further increase the robustness of the process and the conversion rate. This resulted in a limited redesign of a few elements and further optimisation of all steps in the process for producing biomethane using SCW Systems’ gasification technology. We expect the entire value chain to be ready again in 2025. The SCW plant can then start feeding biomethane into our system once more and we can determine whether the adjustments have had the desired effect.

Gasunie Deutschland

As in 2023, in 2024 Gasunie Deutschland was busy handling the many requests from biomethane producers to connect their installations. There are two reasons for this surge in requests: on the one hand, the German government’s 20-year subsidy period for electricity generation from biomethane is coming to an end and, on the other hand, the networks of the DSOs are not able to handle the additional feed-in of biomethane on an ongoing basis.

This presents a challenge to German TSOs, who are legally required to connect biomethane production plants, albeit depending on technical feasibility. The plant in Kirchlinteln was connected in 2024. There are currently another ten serious requests for a connection to the grid, with the engineering already completed for two of these. All the others are currently being considered.

Each year since 2021, we have been calculating the extent of this contribution to progression along the ‘National Transition Pathway’, in terms of megatonnes (Mt) carbon savings per year. In this regard, we are not setting firm targets that we hold ourselves accountable for: the energy transition is too complex a process for that, with too many factors that are beyond our control. These are forecasts, or our most up-to-date estimates of what we will achieve given the current state of permitting procedures, the availability of people and materials, and market demand.

When making our calculations, we always use 2030 as the time horizon so that we can include the projects we are currently working on and which we are almost certain will be completed. We are not (yet) looking ahead to 2040: the results would then become too uncertain.

We compare the megatonnes of carbon savings we will (possibly) be facilitating in the Netherlands up to 2030 with the total emission reduction that the Netherlands will have to make on average per year to reach net-zero emissions in 2050. We also compare our contribution with the contribution of other sectors, which we get from the annual Climate and Energy Outlook published by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

With regard to the forecasts included in this section, the information has not been validated by an external party other than our auditor.

The lower figure is mainly due to the delay we are experiencing in the construction of the Dutch hydrogen network. This situation could also be seen in the recently published energy strategy reports for the regional industrial clusters. This does mean, though, that our contribution will grow rapidly from 2030; however, for reasons of prudence we do not include this in our forecasts.

In addition, up to the end of 2030 we will be investing in Germany’s future hydrogen core network (Wasserstoff-Kernnetz). This will help Germany cut their emissions by 4.4 Mt in 2030 and thus contribute to progression along the German national transition pathway. Unlike in the Netherlands, in Germany there have been no delays in the development of the national hydrogen infrastructure over the past year.

The Netherlands has a statutory emission reduction target of 55% by 2030 (compared with 1990 emission levels). To achieve this without any serious setbacks in the interim, the red line in the charts below must be followed. The new Climate and Energy Outlook shows that it is unlikely that the Netherlands will achieve the 2030 target based on the measures that have been established or proposed at this time. That said, Gasunie’s efforts do help to close a significant part of the gap between the actual emission savings and society’s targeted emission savings.

What does this all mean for the 2030-2050 period? We’ve illustrated this in the chart below. The effect of our investments up to the end of 2030 continues to be evident when we extend the horizon to 2050, as shown in the illustration below. Users of the Gasunie infrastructure will then emit less CO₂ (see the yellow area) and can even achieve net-zero emissions sooner than the national target date.

Gasunie will still have a big job ahead of it after 2030. The hydrogen system in particular will need to be expanded, and we also foresee further growth in biomethane and follow-up investments in the transmission of CO₂. An explanation of the tables and charts above and the figures included in these is included as an appendix to this annual report. We are, for now, only considering the effects of our investments between 2020 and 2030. A new series of Gasunie investments for the period from 2030 to 2040 could lead to a steeper decline along the Dutch transition pathway.

We provide more details on the energy transition, our green bonds, our sustainability-linked bonds, measurement of our current assets, and measurement of other provisions in the Additional notes to the consolidated financial statements under Note 1 ‘Significant matters and events in 2024’, Note 18 ‘Interest-bearing loans’, and Note 23 ‘Other provisions’. We also describe the assumptions and estimates we use in this regard.

In keeping with the regulations, Gasunie reports according to the EU Taxonomy. We tested whether Gasunie’s economic activities qualify as ‘Taxonomy-eligible economic activities’, i.e. economic activities that contribute to one or more of the environmental objectives (which also includes climate-change mitigation and adaptation). We also determined whether the Taxonomy-eligible economic activities meet the ‘substantial contribution’ criteria and whether they ‘do no significant harm’ to any of the other five environmental objectives. In addition, we determined to what extent we as a company have in place the ‘minimum safeguards’ referred to in the Taxonomy regarding human rights, corruption, taxes and fair competition. When a Taxonomy-eligible economic activity meets the three conditions mentioned above, it is referred to as a Taxonomy-aligned economic activity.

We have concluded this year, too, that Gasunie carries out activities that qualify as Taxonomy-eligible (climate or environment related) economic activities. In previous years, we reported that some of our activities make a substantial contribution to climate change mitigation while doing no significant harm to the other environmental objectives. However, based on a thorough analysis and new insights, we must conclude that we do not yet have sufficient documentation to demonstrate that our activities do no significant harm to other environmental objectives, particularly in the area of climate adaptation and the minimum safeguards. We have corrected this error in the tables prescribed under the Taxonomy and have adjusted the comparative figures. We will continue to work on collecting the supporting documentation in 2025.

Our Taxonomy-eligible activities

All of our Taxonomy-eligible activities are activities grouped under the climate change mitigation objective, meaning that there is no question of claiming multiple climate objectives for one and the same activity.

Our Taxonomy-eligible activities concern our hydrogen projects (activities 4.12 and 4.14), our heat projects (activity 4.15), our emission reduction projects (activity 4.14), our projects relating to biomethane (activity 4.14) and our CCS projects (activity 5.11).

Compared to previous years, the share of Taxonomy-eligible activities in our CAPEX increased from 20% to 45%. This is because we invested, in relative terms, more in our Taxonomy-eligible activities in 2024 than we did in the year before.

In addition to the CAPEX in the table above, in 2024 € 138 million was invested in the Porthos joint venture, under which Taxonomy-eligible activities are carried out (activity 5.11). If we were to include our investments in joint ventures when calculating our share of Taxonomy-eligible activities, this CAPEX share would increase from 45% to 53%.

The Appendix to the Sustainability Statement includes the legally prescribed tables and references to the consolidated financial statements.

Minimum safeguards

As an organisation, we must comply with ‘minimum safeguards’, meaning the activities must meet the criteria for responsible business conduct outlined in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.  Four core topics have been identified for compliance with these minimum safeguards: human rights, corruption, taxation and fair competition.

The EU Taxonomy requires that procedures be set up in accordance with the above guidelines and principles. There is a six-step human rights due diligence process to identify, prevent and mitigate any potential and actual adverse human rights impacts.

Gasunie has safeguards in place based on these guidelines and principles. The OECD Guidelines and UN Guiding Principles have been implemented, for example, in our Supplier Code of Conduct. Everyone in the supply chain is encouraged to inform Gasunie about instances of non-compliance with the standards set out in the Supplier Code of Conduct.  Though Gasunie has no formal procedure to monitor the effectiveness of this, there are no indications that this is not effective. In 2024, no cases of non-compliance in our supply chain with the OECD Guidelines or the UN Guiding Principles were reported to the procurement department. We also have a Workplace Code of Conduct setting out how we are expected to behave towards each other. We are currently working on further implementation of the Six Steps of HRDD (human rights due diligence) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.