With the rolling up of some cannabis plantations in Zwaanshoek, the chance that the rest of the village will be in the dark later this year has become a lot smaller. If all the plantations were operational, they would use so much power that the voltage on the mains in the rest of the village might become too low.
A spokesperson for Liander confirms this to NH News, following reports from the police on Facebook. “I don’t know exactly how many households Zwaanshoek has, but the plantations could demand an amount of electricity that the grid is not designed for. That could cause voltage problems, in the street or for several streets.”
The energy supply in Haarlemmermeer is under pressure due to various factors. There is already one, partly due to the increasing activity, housing and the presence of Schiphol capacity shortage for large connectionswhich in practice means that Liander no longer honors requests for large connections.
There is a chance that the network operator will eventually also have to say ‘no’ to parties that need a medium-sized or small connection. To prevent households from being unable to get a power connection in the future, a new distribution station is planned. This must be done at Incheonweg in Rozenburg, but is not expected to be completed until 2025 at the earliest.
With over 1,000 inhabitants spread over 700 households in 18 streets, Zwaanshoek is one of the smaller centers of Haarlemmermeer. Those small numbers therefore make it plausible for Liander that the power supply in the entire village could become unstable once all plantations were in operation.
It will not come to that, thanks to local residents who tipped off the police about suspicious matters around the buildings. After the police discovered an operational plantation of about 200 plants in a warehouse behind the former Schrama potato trade, a few more plantations were found under construction in an adjoining building.
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The cannabis plants have been confiscated and are being destroyed, as is the equipment. The police also seized a BMW. The police do not want to say how they tracked down the plantations.
Fire
Liander emphasizes that hemp farms such as this one, for which electricity is tapped illegally, not only pose a risk to the power supply. The risk of fire and electrocution is also much greater in nurseries with provisionally installed electricity facilities.