Sustainable energy also comes to you

The latest development in the field of rolling out sustainable electricity from wind and sun are floating solar parks on the North Sea and the IJsselmeer. Floating solar panels are not new, you may already find them on lakes and drinking water basins in your area. However, these are of limited scope.

There is quite some resistance in the Netherlands to more wind and solar parks on land. Just to install all the necessary solar panels to achieve the climate goals, an area as large as the province of Utrecht is needed. That is why we are now looking at our areas outside the dykes, i.e. the North Sea and the IJsselmeer. The most recent tender, that for the Wind Farm at Zee IJmuiden Ver, requires floating solar panels to be installed between the wind turbines as a test project.

Opposition to megalomaniac project
However, there is now also a plan to install floating solar panels in the form of solar islands in an area of ​​4.000 hectares in the IJsselmeer. These so-called solar atolls are formed by a sandy wall with shallow water inside. Solar panels will then be placed on 50% of the surface. The atolls are in open connection with the IJsselmeer. That is the idea of ​​a joint venture between Groen Leven, currently owned by the German BayWa (a major player in the field of building sustainable energy projects) and Van Oord, the Dutch dredging company that is involved, for example, in the renewal of the Afsluitdijk and the construction of offshore wind farms.

This plan of a total of 2,5 million solar panels should be located off the coast of Den Oever and Medemblik. Potentially, all those solar panels can generate about 1,7 Terrawatt hours, or 1,700,000.000 Kilowatt hours. Of course only when the sun is shining. Is there no opposition to such a megalomaniac project? Certainly. First of all, the IJsselmeer is a Natura 2000 area, a now well-known concept. Nature organizations, such as Bird Protection, fishing organizations and water recreationists, are against such a project.

The end justifies the means
Is this the first major project in the IJsselmeer? No, the Fryslân Wind Park, a project worth 850 million euros, has now been completed and 89 wind turbines, each 180 meters high, are operating in the IJsselmeer. Of those 89 wind turbines, 21 operate exclusively for the chemical company Chemelot near Geleen. Chemelot has signed a fifteen-year contract with Eneco and is the largest customer of Windpark Fryslân. The wind farm was built despite resistance from the local population, nature organizations and the tourism sector. As a PR stunt, the Windmill Cup 7, a sailing spectacle with the motto 'Wind energy, we can't avoid it, but we can get through it', was organized around Windpark Fryslân on October 2023.

These are examples for regions in the Northern Netherlands, but this is also happening in your area through the so-called 'Regional Energy Strategy'. For this purpose, the Netherlands has been divided into 31 regions, each of which must achieve its own sustainable energy goals. Then we can look at all kinds of smaller projects or very large projects such as solar islands or a wind farm in the IJsselmeer, which will bring the target a lot closer in one go. The end appears to justify the means. The question remains whether this will benefit us all. By building nuclear power stations, these objections do not apply, much less land and water is required and we also have a CO2-free, stable and predictable energy supply. Who knows how the flag will hang after the coming elections? We're going to experience it.

Kasper Walter

Kasper Walet is a former board member of the agricultural futures market. He has now been working under the name Maycroft for years as an independent adviser on energy and climate to governments and companies from all over the world.

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