Celebrating 35 years by building for the next 35 in Hengelo
From energy saving to renewable energy technology
HoSt Group was founded on 18 October 1991 as a joint venture of the Twente-based industrial companies Holec and Stork, with the aim of helping industrial companies save energy. Years of falling energy prices made that a challenging market. As early as 1995, founder Herman Klein Teeselink saw that renewable energy would become the dominant market of the future. After the company became independent in 1999, he made a deliberate choice to develop its own technology for renewable gas, and for heat and electricity from organic residual streams.
A pioneer in renewable gas
Working with partners, HoSt Group developed a fluidised bed gasifier for waste wood and designed the first wood-fired combined heat and power plant in the Netherlands, in Lelystad. In 2000 and 2001, with support from the Dutch government, HoSt Group built the first two biogas plants in Moldova. In 2004 the first biogas plants in the Netherlands followed, also built by HoSt Group. By spreading its activities across several countries and technologies, the group built an organisation that is resilient to changing government policy.
Herman Klein Teeselink, founder of HoSt Group, looks back: “The first years after we became independent were a real challenge. Government policy kept changing, and not only in the Netherlands. But you just have to keep going and find solutions to the problems in front of you. Don’t give up. There’s always a way forward. The energy transition is one of the defining challenges of our time. HoSt was built to contribute to solving it, together with partners, project developers and employees who share that ambition. That has been our drive from the very beginning: not to do what’s easy, but to do what matters.”
Strong growth driven by a clear mission
HoSt Group has now delivered installations in more than 45 countries. In recent years the group has grown by an average of around 30% a year, and it now employs more than 650 people worldwide. Jelle Klein Teeselink, the founder’s son, now leads the family company as CEO. This growth serves the group’s mission: decarbonising industrial processes worldwide. HoSt Group aims to achieve cumulative CO2 savings of 25 million tonnes by 2032, through the installations it builds that produce renewable energy to replace fossil energy and fuels.
Despite this growth, the company has kept its family character. Some colleagues have been there from the very beginning and have been part of the organisation for more than thirty years. And successes, including the small ones, are celebrated together.
Jelle Klein Teeselink, CEO of HoSt Group, explains: “Thirty-five years ago, HoSt Group started in Hengelo with the conviction that residual streams are a valuable source of energy. Today we deliver renewable energy at industrial scale, for the industries where cutting CO₂ emissions is hardest. That is something we celebrate with all our people: at the sites where we produce energy ourselves and in our offices in the Netherlands and abroad. We will do so throughout the year, including at our famous anniversary weekend next year with all our colleagues and their partners. At the same time, we keep building for the future. Our new headquarters in Hengelo gives us room to grow, and we will reach our goals as one company and one team.”
30th anniversary weekend
Focus on the future
With the move, HoSt Group returns to the city where Stork, one of the companies HoSt Group grew out of, also has its roots. The new headquarters is located at the High Tech Systems Park: an innovation campus on the former Thales site, where high-tech companies and talent meet and strengthen each other. The building offers space for around 400 employees and has been designed with further growth beyond that in mind. This makes HoSt Group not only internationally active, but also firmly rooted in the Twente technology region.
