Netherlands: wind and solar energy connected at a single high-voltage substation to solve grid congestion

Noordoostpolder, 23 May 2024 -SPIE Nederland, the Dutch subsidiary of SPIE, the independent European leader in multi-technical services in the areas of energy and communications, is designing and installing a grid connection for 200,000 solar panels on behalf of Ampyr Solar Europe. By 2025, the new substation, which is already in the design phase, will feed renewable energy directly into the Dutch grid. The solar farm will generate enough electricity annually to provide green power to 28,500 households.

SPIE implements interface to HV substation for a large-scale solar power plant

The substation will provide a grid connection for 60 MWp of solar power generated by Ampyr Solar Europe. The farm will cover an area of 45 hectares, equivalent to 85 football fields. The annual production of the solar farm will be enough to supply 28,500 households with renewable electricity or to drive an electric car 600 million kilometres every year. That is almost 15,000 laps around the Earth.

Besides the enormous amount of renewable energy produced and fed into the grid, what makes this project special is the way the tender and design phases have been carried out. SPIE Netherland has been involved in the design and realisation of the grid connection from day one. Peter Grispen, Business Development Manager at SPIE Nederland, explains: "By thinking from the outset about how the solar farm will be connected to the TenneT high-voltage station at Westermeerdijk, we were able to propose an optimal configuration without a costly and time-consuming tendering process."

Ampyr Solar, explains: "The solar farm is being built with several partners. We chose SPIE for the entire implementation of the grid connection because its teams have developed this project with us from the very beginning, starting with engineering, and have proactively taken many parts off our hands. For instance, SPIE sources high-voltage equipment. This proactive attitude ensures that sustainably generated power will be available on the Dutch grid."

Energy neutral by 2030

The new solar farm is located between and next to existing wind turbines and will enable the Noordoostpolder municipality to achieve its goal for becoming energy neutral by 2030. Wind and solar energy complement each other well, as there is usually little wind in sunny weather. This is a sustainable way to meet the city's electricity needs. Peter Grispen added: "By connecting both forms of sustainably generated energy to a single high-voltage substation, we contribute to solving the grid congestion issue and our customer's ambition to reduce CO₂ emissions".