Initiatives

DuCoop contributes to the climate ambitions of the city of Ghent by closing loops: energy (heating, electricity and mobility), water and raw materials (waste treatment).

Heating

All homes are connected to district heating. So you do not own own heating system, but a heat exchanger that draws heat from a collective piping network that heats the entire district.

Of course you do have an individual digital caloric meter and you can determine the temperature in each room of your home yourself. The supply pipes and heat exchanger are the property of the cooperative that supplies the heat.How is this financially settled? On the one hand you pay a fixed annual cost (access to power and maintenance), on the other hand you pay a monthly advance on the consumption that is settled annually.

Illustration Verwarming

You heat in an environmentally friendly way because the heat supplied mainly comes from residual heat from the neighboring company Christeyns, where this heat would otherwise disappear in the atmosphere. So there is no additional emission of CO2 or other harmful gases.

There is also a one-off connection cost for the owner to connect the house to the heat network. You can read details in your affiliation agreement and general sales conditions.

Water

The wastewater is collected and treated in the district. After purification, it gets a second life as process water at the neighboring company Christeyns.

All homes are equipped with vacuum toilets: these look exactly the same, but they only use 1/5 of the water of a classic toilet. You save a lot of water every year. The toilet water is collected separately and digested together with kitchen waste, from which biogas is extracted which is converted into heat.

Illustration Water

Rate

Water in the Nieuwe Dokken costs exactly the same as elsewhere in Ghent. FARYS sends an interim invoice every 3 months and settles the actual consumption once a year. This covers the cost of water and water purification.

Waste

Separate waste processing is of course the norm in the Nieuwe Dokken. DuCoop processes kitchen waste into biogas and a fertilization product that is recycled locally.

Each construction field is equipped with underground waste streets where you can deposit the individual waste bags (residual waste, paper / cardboard, PMD).Furthermore, each house has an airtight green container for kitchen waste. You can empty it at the central collection point under the “Faar” in the central construction field. Optionally, you can install a kitchen grinder, with which you can immediately process waste fruit and vegetables via the vacuum net.

Illustration Afval

DuCoop produces biogas from kitchen waste that is converted into heat and electricity. The nutrients are converted into struvite granules, which are then used to fertilize the green zones in the district.

Mobility

DuCoop promotes sustainable mobility by offering a network of electric charging stations for cars and bicycles.

There are quite a few parking spots with electric charging points. Charging points are also provided in the bicycle parking. If desired, DuCoop supplies a badge and calculates the charging times.

Illustration Mobiliteit

There are also 8 electric shared cars that you can rent on an hourly basis. In this way, together we make De Nieuwe Dokken a future-oriented climate-neutral neighborhood.