A large part of the team in Eindhoven comes from Limburg in the south of the Netherlands. This is also a region that has not yet seen a boom in solar power plant construction, as the hilly terrain often complicates the permitting process. Greenbuddies Energy seized on this situation as an ideal opportunity given that municipalities, even in the south, are bound by sustainability targets (i.e. a certain % of green energy consumption). With several team members speaking to landowners in the local dialect, we find that they often prefer us over more 'northern' competitors. This is one of the main reasons why an increasing proportion of our projects in progress are located in Limburg. Other advantages of the region include the fact that the network is not as congested as elsewhere in the Netherlands.
But the South also brings challenges. The main problem we face today is the fact that municipalities have not yet formulated concise legislation to permit large solar installations. This has resulted in a lot of work having to be done to lobby municipal councils to pass laws in favour of specific projects. Of course, this can only be done for projects that are integrated in a way that fits ideally into the landscape while bringing concrete social benefits to the residents of the surrounding areas. All of this means that a great deal of effort is put into creating local links and spending time getting to know the surroundings of a particular project. This is the only way to develop with respect for the ecology of the surrounding area and with an open mind to suggestions from local residents.
As the pictures suggest, our team enjoys the challenge of finding new promising projects and developing them into full-fledged projects that supply green electricity to the national grid. We recommend keeping an eye on the situation in the south of the Netherlands, where a number of interesting solar projects will emerge in the coming years, thanks also to the efforts of our dedicated Dutch development team.
