Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO), the Dutch state-run agency that administers the SDE++ program, said its latest bidding round has reserved 1,051 MW of solar capacity for commercial and industrial solar systems and 862 MW for utility solar plants. to be built on land or water.
According to RVO, the allocated solar power capacity is represented by 1.051 MW of commercial and industrial solar power systems. Another 862 MW comes from utility-scale solar power plants built on land or water, and only 39 MW is earmarked for wind power projects. In total, the agency has allocated 2,813 MW of capacity between different renewable energy technologies and other carbon dioxide capture and heating technologies.
The Dutch government initially allocated a budget of 13 billion euros ($14.6 billion) for the previous year, but managed to allocate only 11.9 billion euros. Carbon dioxide recovery technologies received the largest share, 6.7 billion euros, while solar energy achieved only 963 million euros, which significantly reduced resources compared to the previous round.
The RVO said the decrease in budget allocations for solar technology was mainly due to grid congestion problems currently affecting the Dutch electricity grid.
“In those areas, the subsidy applicant usually does not receive a transfer permit from the network operator, which is a prerequisite for receiving subsidies,” the agency said. “In addition, for the first time in rooftop electricity projects, the builder of the installation was required to be notified.
In the previous round of the program, the Dutch government selected 3,426 solar power projects with a combined output of 3,535 MW.
The Netherlands can achieve between 100 and 180 GW of total solar capacity by 2050, according to Netbeheer Nederland, the Dutch association of national and regional electricity and gas grid operators.
The country reached 16.5 GW of cumulative installed solar power capacity at the end of June 2022, according to the latest statistics from the country’s statistics agency CBS. According to it, the state installed 3,803 MW in 2021 and 3,882 MW in 2022.
