Disadvantages of District Heating Networks

A district heating network supplies heat centrally to homes and buildings through a closed pipe system, and in the Netherlands that heat is delivered by a single supplier per network. The consequence is legal rather than technical: a household on a heat network cannot switch suppliers, cannot compare offers and cannot negotiate its rate. Protection therefore has to come from regulation instead of from the market. The Warmtewet caps what small consumers may be charged, the Autoriteit Consument en Markt (ACM) sets those maximum tariffs each year, and the Wet collectieve warmte will replace that framework once it enters into force. This article sets out where the pinch points lie for consumers on a heat network and which legal routes are open when a supplier oversteps the mark.

Why a heat network leaves so little room for choice

On the electricity and gas market a consumer chooses a supplier and switches when a better offer appears. On a heat network that mechanism is absent. The network, the production installation and the supply are usually in the hands of one party, and connection is arranged at the level of the building or the neighbourhood rather than the household. Whoever lives there is a customer of that supplier, for as long as the connection exists.

That position is not unlawful in itself. A heat network only becomes viable when a whole district is connected, and the legislature has accepted that concentration. What the legislature has added in return is tariff regulation and a set of statutory duties: a supply obligation, minimum quality requirements, compensation for outages and an independent complaints and disputes procedure. The practical question for a consumer is therefore never whether the supplier holds a strong position, but whether it has stayed within the limits the law attaches to that position.

What you pay, and who sets it

Under the Warmtewet the ACM sets a maximum tariff each year for the supply of heat, for the delivery set and for the connection. Those maxima apply to small consumers, the category into which almost every household falls. The calculation currently rests on the gas reference: the maximum rate is derived from what a comparable household with a gas boiler would pay, so that a heat customer is in principle not worse off than a gas customer.

That reference is on its way out. The Wet collectieve warmte was passed by the Eerste Kamer on 9 December 2025 and published in the Staatsblad on 22 January 2026, but it enters into force by royal decree and that date has not yet been fixed for all of its provisions; implementing rules such as the Besluit collectieve warmte are still going through Parliament. Until the relevant articles apply, the Warmtewet and the gas reference remain the applicable law. Once the new act does apply, the maximum tariff moves in stages towards a cost-based method, and public control over new heat networks becomes the rule rather than the exception.

A maximum is not a market price. Because there is no competitor to undercut it, suppliers as a rule invoice at or close to the ceiling, and the discounts and welcome offers that are common on the electricity market do not exist here. That does not make an invoice unlawful, but it does mean that the only real check on the bill is whether the supplier has stayed inside the regulated maxima and has correctly applied the tariff components it charges.

Tenants and owners are in different positions

A tenant has no say in the choice of heat supply at all: it follows from the building. Where heat is charged on through the service charges, the rent rules apply alongside the Warmtewet, and a tenant who disputes the settlement of those charges can put the question to the Huurcommissie. Where the tenant has a supply contract with the heat company itself, the route runs through that company and its disputes committee.

An owner has a theoretical way out. Disconnecting from the network and installing a heat pump, a solar boiler or another individual system is legally possible, but rarely simple. It calls for technical work in the home, often for additional insulation before the alternative performs, and the contract with the supplier or the deed of the association of owners may stand in the way. In an apartment building the decision is not the individual owner’s to take: the installation is usually common property, which makes it a matter for the general meeting of the VvE. Before an owner commits to a disconnection, it is worth having the contract, the deed of division and the applicable network conditions read together, because the cost of leaving is frequently decided by those documents rather than by the technology.

Service, outages and sustainability claims

Complaints about heat networks concentrate on two points: the speed with which outages are resolved, and the way in which the heat is presented as sustainable. On the first point the Warmtewet gives consumers a firmer footing than is often assumed. A supplier owes compensation when supply fails for a prolonged period, and the applicable conditions set out the response times to which it has committed itself.

The second point is less clear-cut. Heat from biomass is presented as renewable, yet the combustion of wood releases carbon dioxide and the sourcing of that wood is contested. Geothermal heat and residual industrial heat sit differently. There is no rule that forbids a supplier from calling its heat sustainable, but a claim that cannot be substantiated may amount to a misleading commercial practice within the meaning of Section 6:193a et seq. of the Dutch Civil Code. That is a claim with a threshold: it requires the statement, the substantiation and the effect on the consumer to be examined together, not merely a difference of opinion about biomass.

What to do when you disagree with your supplier

The route runs in three steps. It starts with a written complaint to the supplier, in which the disputed component of the invoice or the failure in the supply is named as precisely as possible, with the periods and amounts involved. If that does not resolve matters, the dispute can be put to the independent disputes committee to which the supplier is affiliated; that procedure is quick and inexpensive, and the decision binds the supplier. Structural questions about the tariff or about compliance with the Warmtewet can in addition be reported to the ACM, which supervises the sector but does not decide individual claims for repayment.

The civil court remains open where a substantial sum is at stake or where the same charge has been levied on a whole neighbourhood. That this route can succeed is shown by the judgments of the Court of Appeal in ’s-Hertogenbosch of 16 July 2024, in which the court held that Ennatuurlijk had for years wrongly charged a connection contribution to consumers in the Meerhoven district of Eindhoven and the Reeshof district of Tilburg. The supplier lodged an appeal in cassation. A claim of this kind stands or falls with the contractual documentation and with the limitation periods, so the file is best assembled early: the supply contract, the general conditions, the annual statements and the correspondence about the charge in dispute.

How Law & More can help

Our energy law practice acts for consumers, associations of owners and tenants’ organisations in disputes with heat suppliers, from a contested invoice to a collective claim about a charge levied across an entire district. We assess the contract and the conditions against the Warmtewet and the ACM tariff decisions, we conduct the correspondence with the supplier and, where necessary, we take the case to the disputes committee or the court. Do you have a dispute with your heat supplier, or do you want to know whether what you are being charged is permitted? Please contact us; we are happy to look at your file with you.