A 240 meter wind turbine. That, Annelies Osinga (54), knows, is four times as high as the church tower of Langeraar, which she can just see from her backyard along the dike in Rijnsaterwoude. And fifteen times as high as the windmill that supplies power to the farmer on the other side of the Leidse Vaart from his yard.
Osinga came to the Groene Hart fifteen years ago for the landscape, for the peace and quiet. Her husband personally renovated a nineteenth-century farmhouse in the ribbon village of more than twelve hundred inhabitants, from which she looks out over the polder landscape.
That view is now in danger of being put to an end. The Vierambachtspolder behind her house is one of three locations that the province of South Holland sees as suitable land for wind turbines. Here and at two locations along the provincial road near Alphen aan den Rijn there would be room for a total of 27 turbines.
The province prefers to generate its clean energy locally due to the overload on the power grid, which makes it difficult to transport electricity over greater distances. Just last week, the cabinet took the drastic decision not to grant any new power connections in the Utrecht region for the time being.
But the Green Heart is not waiting for the wind turbines. On a Friday in April, more than a hundred speakers traveled to the provincial government building in The Hague. They are each given three minutes to have their say before the Provincial Council – twelve hours have been set aside for this. A few are positive, but the rest is mainly dissatisfaction.
One word keeps recurring: support.
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Sustainability from the bottom up
Alderman Dolf Kistemaker (PRO) of Kaag en Braassem, one of the speakers, does not talk bluntly on the telephone a few days later. His main objection lies with the way in which the province has, in his words, “rolled through” the municipality’s own sustainability plans.
He calls the course of events “tear-jerking”. “If you are lucky, as a municipality you will occasionally be briefed and you can shout something out in between. There has been no form of participation of any kind, neither towards the municipality nor towards residents.”
Until a few years ago, the central government designated locations where wind farms would be built. In Groningen and Drenthe this led to strong resistance from activists, with intimidation in the form of arson and threatening letters. The National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV) spoke of “extremism”.
Then things changed. From now on, plans for sustainability had to come ‘from the bottom up’, with more attention paid to consultation and participation.
Partly for this reason, the Regional Energy Strategy (RES) was created in 2019. The country was divided into thirty ‘energy regions’, with clubs of municipalities, provinces and water boards that would jointly look for measures to implement the energy transition.
Annelies Osinga at the polder behind her home in Rijnsaterwoude.
Photo BRAM PETRAEUS
For example, in Holland Rijnland, the region that includes Kaag and Braassem, the authorities also sat down with each other. But the self-set goals for 2030 turned out to be too ambitious. “In some areas things are progressing less quickly than we had hoped,” the councilor acknowledges. “At one point we said: we’re not going to make it.”
The province, the competent authority in the field of larger wind farms, then took control.
Hundreds of objections
“We simply need the clean energy,” says deputy Arno Bonte (PRO) in his office in the provincial government building. “Otherwise, companies will no longer be connected to the power grid and construction plans will be delayed. Moreover, we want to tackle climate change, so we must become independent of fossil fuels.”
He says he has given the municipalities the opportunity to come up with alternatives. But the number of solar panels you can place on roofs is reaching its limits. And energy is also needed at times when the sun is not shining.
In order to still achieve the objectives, the province presented a map just before the summer of 2025 with the “technically best possible locations” for wind turbines in the relevant regions. That did not go unnoticed. In the following weeks, a wave of criticism followed, and the provincial government received hundreds of objections.
If it were up to the trio, the province would opt for a small-scale modular nuclear reactor instead of wind energy
“The communication from our side could have been clearer on this point,” Bonte agrees. According to the deputy, the map was incorrectly read as if the locations were already fixed. “That is a lesson for the future. Tickets are always sensitive, we have also seen that nationally when it came to nitrogen.”
The Provincial Executive subsequently reduced the number of “primary search areas” to three in the autumn. The remaining nine potential locations have been designated as ‘secondary search areas’ and are provisionally on the reserve bank.
An attempt has been made, says Bonte, to “find a balance”. “I understand that people are concerned about their view and the change in their living environment. But ultimately we make a weighing of interests. When I look at the total picture, a clean energy supply at a local level outweighs the view.”
‘Support has been destroyed’
Annelies Osinga is sitting at the kitchen table in Rijnsaterwoude with the couple Willem Beekhuizen (80) and Marleen Delhaes (70), both retired doctors, from the Endangered Open Landscape group. Their protest started two years ago, when the municipality of Kaag en Braassem asked residents to think about the local energy strategy.
Don’t misunderstand the three: they are not opponents of the energy transition. “But in this way,” says Osinga, “the landscape is enormously affected. It is called the Green Heart – that is not without reason.”
Her objection also lies with the noise, especially with the piercing low-frequency sound that you do not hear, and the health risks associated with it according to the reports on the table. “What bothers me is the carelessness with which decisions like these are pushed through.”
If it were up to the trio, the province would opt for a small-scale modular nuclear reactor instead of wind energy. Do they want it in the backyard? “Rather than all those wind turbines,” says Delhaes.
Although some municipalities are currently investigating the feasibility of nuclear energy as an alternative to wind turbines and solar meadows, the small modular reactor (SMR) is currently still in the future: unlike in Russia and China, none has been launched anywhere in the Western world.
Protest against the plans for wind turbines in Rijnsaterwoude.
BRAM PETRAEUS
Annelies Osinga (front) with the couple Marleen Delhaes and Willem Beekhuizen from the group Endangered Open Landscape.
Photos BRAM PETRAEUS
Councilor Kistemaker says that there was initial support for some wind turbines in Kaag en Braassem. He had gone into the villages himself, passed through halls, and asked residents what they thought about it. “People there said: we understand that we have to do something. But what little support there was has been skillfully destroyed.”
The province started its own exploration process. “That is hopelessly mixed up. Then I stand in a room talking about one or two wind turbines and the province comes up with its own plans. No one understands that anymore.”
The city council has now opposed any form of wind energy. “If you do not offer any space to start a conversation and see if you can find each other somewhere, you end up digging in your heels,” says Kistemaker.
Bonte emphasizes that there has been “intensive consultation” with the municipalities. But when that yielded insufficient results, the province decided to take the plunge. “Because we want to continue to get power from our socket, but we are not going to allow wind turbines on our territory, that is of course not possible.”
Unpopular choices
Martijn Groenleer, professor of public administration at Tilburg University and principal researcher at TNO, sees that problems arise more often within the energy regions as soon as paper ambitions have to be converted into practical measures. “Formulating goals is not easy, but it is often possible. As soon as it becomes concrete, it starts to hurt.”
According to him, there is a broader problem: unpopular choices are being pushed forward in the best tradition of poldering. But, says Groenleer, there inevitably comes a time when decisions have to be made.
The councilor agrees. “There is no one, and you can also blame the municipalities for this, who has thought: what does it mean if you have to give shape to the sustainable generation of energy? Then you will find out later: we are doing our utmost, but there are all kinds of spatial limitations.”
It was not only like this in the Groene Hart. In Utrecht, the province also designated locations for wind farms last year when municipalities were not on track to achieve their targets. And that also led to outrage there.
The goal of participation is not to please everyone. This is to gain a clear picture of all interests, so that we can make a good decision
Groenleer calls the RES approach of poldering authorities an “important mechanism, but not one silver bulletAccording to the professor, the energy transition is too often regarded as an “implementation problem”. The will to always reach an agreement fails to recognize that “it is ultimately also a political issue, with winners and losers.”
The result is simple, says Groenleer. “If a conflict is not resolved there, it will simply happen in a different way, in a different form, at a different time. We thought we had organized this problem away with decentralization and regionalization, but of course it doesn’t work that way.”
Kistemaker understands, says the councilor, that the province sometimes “has to take control based on a higher interest.” “There are things that are very difficult to achieve at a local level. But then you look together for the answer to the question: where are the problems and how do we solve them together?”
Willem Beekhuizen, Marleen Delhaes and Annelies Osinga oppose the plans for the wind turbines.
Photo BRAM PETRAEUS
But according to Groenleer, it is an illusion to think that support is in any case a feasible goal. And: “We should not pretend that this is always a condition. The provinces make a political choice, a trade-off between interests. They are also responsible for this. We must also be open and honest about that.”
Yes, the deputy also says: “There are objectors who are still not satisfied with the plans. But for me that is not the test of whether participation has gone well. The aim of participation is not to satisfy everyone. But to get a good picture of all interests, so that we can make a good assessment.”
In June, the Provincial Council will vote on the revision of the Environmental Policy. Even then, says Bonte, the wind turbines are not there the next day. According to him, in the next week’s phase it will be investigated what the “most suitable locations are to actually place them” within the designated search areas.
If you look closely, you can already see windmills on the horizon from your backyard in Rijnsaterwoude, right along the highway, at a considerable distance from homes. You won’t hear residents complaining about that anytime soon.
But, says Osinga, these wind turbines reach a maximum of ninety meters. “The new ones are almost three times as high, which you can hear and see from many kilometers away. And it is not just about the turbines themselves, but concrete is also being poured, roads are being built, heavy traffic. It will simply become an industrial park here.”
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