By the end of 2018, the number of solar panels in the city of Groningen will have more than doubled over the past year.
Translation by Traci White
The Groninger Internet Courant reports that the majority of the panels were installed at the Roodehaan Solar Park along the A7 motorway near Hoogezand. The park is scheduled to open later this year and will have 85,212 panels.
The boom in installations means that the municipality has far exceeded its goal of adding 100,000 solar panels in 2018. Grunneger Power, a Groningen-based energy collective, conducts an annual inventory of the number of solar panels within the city limits through aerial photography.
Roofs and parks
Nearly 30,000 panels were added to the roofs of homes in the city, which is a 46 percent increase over last year. The majority of the new solar panels have been built in arrays. In 2017, three parks accounted for more than 50,000 panels: Vierverlaten near Hoogkerk (7,777), Woldjerspoor (43,000) and Zernike (1,700).
The city of Groningen is aiming to be a carbon neutral city by the year 2035 and is planning to have 700,000 solar panels by 2023. A dire report released earlier this week by the UN sounded the alarm for the urgent need to limit further global warming. In a landmark legal decision on Tuesday, DutchNews.nl reports that courts upheld a ruling that the Dutch government is obligated to cut carbon dioxide by 25 percent, arguing that the state has a duty of care toward citizens.
