This study focuses on the production of dry peat fuel in the northern parts of the Netherlands between 1550 and 1950. Peat digging played an important role there because in the course of four hundred years around 100,000 hectare raised bog peat and 42,000 hectare fenland peat was converted to dry peat fuel, representing a combustion value of 3.5 x 109 gigajoules. This peat was excavated from 62 raised bog areas and 11 fenland areas. An assessment is made of the importance of these various peat-bogs and fenlands, both with regard to each other and to the total picture. It also enables the categorisation into periods. Above all, in this way the contribution made by the peat digging in the northern Netherlands to the national energy supply is researched. To a lesser extent attention is paid to the distribution of dry peat fuel and its consumption.