Last year, Goldbeck Solar realized a third of Holland’s new ground mounted solar farm capacity. The reason for that was the suburban project in Veendam with its 15.5 MW, which was connected to the grid on December 31, 2017. The company from Hirschberg is already working on further assignments.
“The conditions under which we completed our first project were technically challenging”, says Tobias Friedrich, international key account manager and Goldbeck Solar`s Head of Sales in the Netherlands. He was among those who initiated the solar farm in Veendam. The workers actually waded through knee-deep water, as the ground was muddy in winter, rapidly reaching the groundwater while driving the pillars into the ground. They had to work using rope winches and boats. Today, Friedrich clearly sees the advantages of this substantial assignment: “We learned quite a lot. That has turned into know-how that we can use for our upcoming projects.”
And there are lots of them. That goes for concrete two-digit MW orders as well as for calls for tenders, of which the solar company expects additional awards of contracts. During the latest rounds of assignments, some four GW of solar extensions were distributed in the Netherlands. Those responsible for the projects now have three years for realizing them. The current GTM Research study expects an additional one GW to be realized in 2018.
“Since 2011, we have experienced a steady increase of the Dutch market. At the moment, however, this is a peak that will continue for a while”, says market expert Friedrich. The government already paved the way toward a market free of subsidies, but it is still not in sight. “We expect such a market situation rather to develop in countries with high solarization such as Spain, where we are currently active as well.”
Veendam is one of the largest solar farms in the Netherlands, and one of the few that still went to the grid in 2017. Goldbeck Solar realized the project for Astronergy.
