District heating out, sustainability in: NAC and HoCoSto build a green Rat Verlegh Stadium

Sustainability. The term can now be heard in the smallest rooms of the Rat Verlegh Stadium. NAC wants to move forward - athletically, organizationally and future-proof. A company that helps the Pearl of the South to do so is HoCoSto from Zundert. Owner and founder René Geerts talks about the 'much needed' job.

"We do something special. We store energy, but not with batteries like everyone else does," Geerts begins enthusiastically about his company. "Heat is the biggest energy need and that's what we store. It's cheaper, you get further, and it's the most 'pure' way - underground. You can use heating when you need it and make it when it's cheap.

HoCoSto, which employs about 25 people, is doing that under parking lots, for example, and now also at NAC's new main field. "For example, we are also working on a fire station in Utrecht, to get it completely off the gas. In Zwolle we are working at a hotel that wants to expand - also aimed at full sustainability. Schools, campsites, factories ... but a soccer company, that's a first for us. Our company is mainly active in the Netherlands and Belgium, and the requests from customers dealing with grid congestion are flying around our ears."

Multi-year project

"We are in the process of making the entire Rat Verlegh Stadium more sustainable," says the project manager about the work on Stadionstraat. "That is something for the next four to five years, because it is a big project. The field and field heating are the start, because that is a big energy draw in the winter. In the last few seasons, the field heating was also almost not functioning, so a lot of energy was lost. The system was completely leaky. Next winter, the conservation measures for the field should already be in place. It is highly necessary and good that NAC is working on this. There is a lot to save here."

Geerts explains how it works further: "With the field heating we can also cool the buildings in the future. To that end, we are already installing those hoses under the field. So in the summer those are low in terms of temperature, and it can have a cooling effect. Sensors are placed everywhere to see what's going on. Then we can always see when it's best to turn things on or off."

It is a network of wires, hoses and pipes under the field of the Breda soccer temple. "It has to be, in order to continue that sustainability, because everything was still on the old district heating. Only - that is a project of several years, as it is a monster job."

'Beautiful and unique'

The KNVB will also see this massive upgrade in facilities as a plus. "Everything with the district heating was 100 percent fossil, and ideally we are working toward 100 percent sustainable," said Geerts, who is primarily involved in product and project development at the family-owned company.

"It really is customization what we have to deliver, but that's what makes it beautiful and unique," says the man from Zundert proudly. "The cooperation with the other parties working here at NAC is super. It's great that as a NAC supporter I get to help the future of the club in this way."

Source: NAC