Green funerals | Dutch crematorium plans to switch from natural gas to hydrogen

Dutch funeral services firm Crematoria Twente is reportedly due to take a final investment decision on switching from using natural gas to hydrogen this year — but the costs could require it to withhold shareholder dividends in order to pay for the project.

Crematoria Twente plans to replace one of its two ovens at the Enschede crematorium in the Dutch village of Usselo, in order to provide a fossil-fuel-free option for mourners.

However, the company, which has been studying the feasibility of using green hydrogen since late 2021, expects that hydrogen fuel would cost 2.5 times as much as natural gas — potentially an optimistic estimate.

Given gas prices in Europe currently trend around €30/MWh, €75/MWh of green hydrogen would suggest a price of around €3/kg, which is on the lower end of estimates for cost of renewable H₂ production in Europe, never mind the extra costs to compress and deliver it to users.

As such, Crematoria Twente reportedly anticipates drawing on subsidies to cover the extra operating costs of purchasing hydrogen over natural gas.

The crematorium operator has also recently put forward a proposal towards the 11 municipalities with a stake in the company, which would cancel dividends in order to fund the switch to H₂.

“As far as I can tell, we would be the first in the world to do this,” Crematoria Twente’s director Harriët Tomassen told local newspaper Tubantia. “I would love to continue with this.”

Fellow Dutch funeral services company Respectrum had also commissioned studies on switching its crematoria to run on green hydrogen, but ultimately concluded that this would not be feasible in the short term.

And while Crematoria Twente would likely be the first to commit to using H₂ during regular operations at a crematorium, the Worthing Borough Council in the UK announced last year that Worthing Crematorium would be the first in the world to trial hydrogen-fired ovens from spring of this year, although there have been no further updates on this project.

Crematoria Twente is also considering investment into another innovative but high-cost funeral method: resomation, where human remains are dissolved in a potassium hydroxide solution. As such, depending on demand, Crematoria Twente may be faced with the choice of putting its profits towards one practice or the other.

“We have to answer the question of whether we want to offer this to people,” said Tommassen. “It is very different from cremation. It is unclear how many people want to use it.

“Whether it is possible to invest in hydrogen and resomation must be investigated.”