Construction begins on Netherlands’ largest ever solar farm
Solarcentury and Encavis announce development of 44MW Nyrstar solar farm as first partnership deal.
Solarcentury is partnering with German solar and wind energy operator, Encavis AG, to develop the largest ever solar farm in the Netherlands.
Construction on the 44MW Nyrstar solar farm based near the city of Eindhoven in North Brabant, will start next Monday and is due for completion by the end of the year. The site will double Encavis AG’s current generation capacity in the Dutch solar market to nearly 100MW.
The project is part of a wider partnership, cemented between Solarcentury and Encavis in December 2017, to increase solar output across the Netherlands to 1.1 GW over the next three years. The Nyrstar development is the first of these projects to reach the construction stage.
Chief Executive of Solarcentury, Frans van den Heuvel, said: “Together with our partner Encavis, within only 10 weeks we managed to finance one of the largest projects in the Netherlands – that was only possible because all people involved, from Solarcentury, Encavis, the project partners, Rabobank and all advisors have been working hand in hand as one team.”
The solar farm will sit on a sink landfill site and is expected to be connected to the national grid by December 2018. It has a state-guaranteed feed-in tariff of 10.4 euro cents per kilowatt hour for 15 years following connection to the grid, resulting in an anticipated turnover of nearly 4.5m euros per year after the first year of operation.
Chief Executive of Encavis AG, Dr Dierk Paskert, said the Dutch solar market was “particularly appealing” due to existing governmental policy in the Netherlands to focus on renewable energy, including “concrete expansion plans, currency matching and attractive financing terms”.
“We are pleased that following our announcement we were now able to acquire the first solar park from our strategic partnership with Solarcentury,” he said.
“We will continue to work on the further implementation of that partnership over the coming months. Solarcentury’s investment in the solar park speaks for their high level of professionalism and commitment as a partner.”
Solarcentury will be responsible for ongoing operations and maintenance at the farm and will retain an investor equity share of 20 per cent.
Read more about Solarcentury’s partnership with Encavis (formerly Capital Stage).
