28 Photo: NUON 4 Energy The City of Amsterdam wants to make a substantial contribution to achieving the Paris agreement. The city has the ambition to reduce CO2 emissions in Amsterdam by 55% in 2030 and 95% in 2050. Amsterdam also wants to be free from natural gas by 2040. The Zuidas contributes to this goal through steps to disconnect mainly new buildings, but also existing buildings from the natural gas pipelines. The Zuidas Amsterdam Development Office is also working on making the area free of natural gas by 2040. New developments are being constructed without natural gas connections and heating is supplied from local and sustainable sources as much as possible. The council is setting restrictions to the energy demand of buildings and is challenging the market to construct circular, energy-positive buildings. A good local and sustainable alternative for gas is thermal storage whereby heat is stored in the summer and released in the winter to heat a building, while in the winter cold is stored to cool the building on warmer days. The first thermal storage system in Zuidas dates from 2002. The city district heating is another sustainable alternative and Zuidas is one of the few areas with a cooling network. It taps cool water from the Nieuwe Meer and has been in operation since 2006. Gas-free Zuidas According to the Dutch ‘Gaswet’ (gas law) a user must always be allowed to connect to the gas network if requested. Sustainable options were often required to make room for ‘old-fashioned’ gas pipes causing complications in the crowded underground Zuidas infrastructure. The Summer of 2018 saw this gas delivery obligation removed from the Gaswet (for
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