FrieslandCampina farms to get 416,000 solar panels
Dutch dairy farmers can earn an annual payment of €3 to €4 per solar panel on their shed roofs.
Dairy farms with a roof surface of over 1,000 square metres can qualify for free installation of the panels.
Connection, monitoring, financing, guarantees, and maintenance are also free.
The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs has granted a subsidy of over €200 million euro for installation of the panels on the roofs of FrieslandCampina co-op member dairy farms.
The aim is to install more than 416,000 solar panels at 310 dairy farms.
As well as providing power for the dairy farms, these will generate more than 20% of the electricity for the Dutch factories and offices of FrieslandCampina, which is one of the world’s six biggest dairy companies.
The electricity generated will be equivalent to the power for 33,000 average households.
The ambition of FrieslandCampina is to generate sufficient green electricity at farm yards to fully cover the use of electricity within the company, as part of a plan to achieve climate neutral growth in 2020.
FrieslandCampina stimulates the production of green electricity by offering dairy farmers a €10 bonus for each ton reduction of carbon dioxide emission.
An average dairy farm roof (usually the sheds) owned by the co-op’s members offers room for more than enough solar panels to compensate for the full electricity demand of the farm.
A total of 1,600 FrieslandCampina dairy farms already have the solar panels.
A second participation round for FrieslandCampina member dairy farms is taking place now, and hundreds of dairy farmers have expressed their interest.
The FrieslandCampina solar programme will also try to find solutions for roof surfaces smaller than 1,000 square metres.
