Vattenfall’s biggest solar farm to date opened in the Netherlands

At Eemshaven in the north of the Netherlands, Vattenfall has opened its biggest solar farm to date with a total output of 5.7 MW. The construction has been made possible by customers, local residents and other interested parties through the crowdfunding project “Samen in Zon”.

This is the second crowdfunded solar farm in the Netherlands to be opened and later this year, another two are planned to in Coevorden and Gasselternijveen, which together will account for 9.2 MW renewable power.

Five football pitches

The Eemshaven solar farm includes 18,000 panels, covering an area of five football pitches. Like all of Vattenfall’s solar farms, it is co-located with other power production, in this case the gas-fired power plant Magnum.

Margit Deimel, director of Large-scale Solar and Batteries at Vattenfall explains the benefits:

 ”To fit a solar farm into existing infrastructure is efficient use of resources. We use the same cables as the Magnum power station, without compromising the security of supply during installation. The use of the existing equipment leads to synergies that benefit the profitability and we also make smart use of the site of the power plant.”

Large investments in solar power

Vattenfall inaugurated its first large-scale solar power farm in 2016 located in Parc Cynog in Wales. The 5 MW solar farm is co-located with a wind farm and has up until now been Vattenfall’s largest solar power farm.

Solar power is a growing operations segment within Vattenfall. In 2019 and 2020, Vattenfall will invest approximately 100 million euro in large-scale solar power production and also batteries. Many of the projects are located in the Netherlands. Also in Germany, a number of co-located solar power projects is ongoing, for example together with Vattenfall’s pumped hydro power stations in the country.