01 Foreword by the Executive Board

Having a robust industrial sector is essential: it’s essential for our earning capacity, for our employment, and for our strategic autonomy. Working quickly now to make our energy supply more sustainable in the coming years is, in the long term, the best way to keep energy prices in check. To achieve this, we, as a whole, need to see an increase in the supply of and demand for affordable renewable energy and we need to have the new infrastructure in place to connect this supply and demand.

Green electricity will continue to increase, and this is urgently needed, too, for various sectors in society. However, sustainability will go faster and be more affordable if we also focus on sustainable gases. By adding sustainable gases like green and blue hydrogen and (to a lesser extent) biomethane and heat to the energy system, we make the system more robust. We can also produce these gases right in our own region, making us less dependent on other power blocs.

While new developments in batteries can help in some sectors, electrification is not possible for some industrial processes, and gases are more efficient for large-scale and long-term energy storage and transport, ensuring that society always has access to energy, even when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing.

And let’s not forget, EU countries must reduce their carbon emissions by at least 55% by 2030 and be climate neutral by 2050. As a society, we can only achieve these essential climate targets if we focus on making both electricity and gases more sustainable. Gasunie wants to work with others to develop a new alliance, one in which green electricity and green and sustainable gases go hand in hand, each contributing to the other’s success.

While developing this new infrastructure, we need to ensure that homes stay warm and that businesses can continue to operate: that’s our responsibility. We continue to ensure that our natural gas networks in the Netherlands and Germany function optimally and efficiently. Furthermore, we are committed to making the supply of heat to households more sustainable by realising the WarmtelinQ heat transport network and to the feed-in of biomethane, both of which can help make hybrid heat pumps fully sustainable. Now that gas production from the Groningen field has ended, we are expanding the import capacity for LNG.

To ensure the robustness of our energy system and long-term security of supply, we are keen to engage in further dialogue with all stakeholders on the best way to strengthen our strategic natural gas reserves so that we are better prepared in the event of a geopolitical crisis and in view of the increasing global tensions we currently are experiencing.

New energy for a prosperous society: that’s the goal Gasunie is pursuing. We will invest approximately € 12 billion in our infrastructure up to the end of 2030. Two thirds of this investment will go to sustainable networks and one third to security of supply of natural gas.

In the energy system of the future we will see an equal partnership between green electricity and green and sustainable gases. This is the moment of connection. It’s the moment of joining forces so that heavy industry can make its operations more sustainable, so that homes and businesses continue to have access to ever-more sustainable energy, and so that we can achieve the climate targets together. It’s all possible!

The energy transition has placed enormous responsibility on the shoulders of our employees. We owe them a great debt of gratitude for the hard work they have put in. Their tireless efforts have enabled us to take key steps forward over the past year. Together with our people, we will continue to work on building an available, affordable, sustainable energy system for the future.

Willemien Terpstra, Jan Boekelman, Bart Jan Hoevers and Hans Coenen