It “appears” that the municipality of Drimmelen has favored a village initiative for a solar park in Terheijden, to the detriment of commercial parties that also want to build solar parks in the municipality. That the Council of State decides Wednesday on appeal. The municipality has to reassess five permit applications, this time ‘in an objective and equal way’.
In the North Brabant municipality of Drimmelen, the village of Terheijden is working on greening its energy supply. Wrote about the project NRC from 2019 to 2021 in the series off the gas† In the village, a fossil-free heat network to heat houses is under construction. An own windmill and a solar park must generate the electricity for that grid.
Also read: The Brabant village of Terheijden does make the natural gas-free plans come true
The Council of State confirms a ruling on that solar park this Wednesday that the court in Breda made in 2020. Even then, the verdict was that the permit applications for that solar park and four competing projects had to be reassessed. The municipality did that last year, and the outcome remained the same: only the solar park of the local Traais Energie Collectief was allowed to come. According to the Council of State, those new decisions also ‘cannot withstand the test of criticism’.
Setback
The ruling is a setback for the municipality of Drimmelen, which supports the local energy initiative in Terheijden because many residents of the village support it. The cabinet also wants to promote financial participation of local residents in solar and wind farms, such as in Terheijden.
The municipality of Drimmelen could not be reached for comment on Wednesday morning. The initiator of Terheijden’s green energy plans, entrepreneur Pim de Ridder, calls the statement “the worst possible outcome”. “No one knows where he stands now.”
According to the commercial solar park company NaGa Solar, which had initiated legal proceedings because its permits had been refused, the ruling of the Council of State is “important for the entire national solar sector”. The director of NaGa Solar, Henny Pelsers: “This once again explicitly looked at the complex decision-making process regarding solar parks in municipalities. There is a lot on the plate of municipalities. This did not go well in Drimmelen.”
government grants
The foundation for the conflict was laid in 2018. Then there was great national interest from entrepreneurs to build solar parks, because the government subsidies were generous. In Drimmelen, too, companies became involved in a race to obtain permits for those parks. Subsequently, residents protested what they saw as damage to the landscape. The municipality then decided to only grant a permit to the locally supported solar park of the Traais Energie Collectief.
De Ridder, who works together with the local Traais Energie Collectief, doubts whether his solar park can still be built now that the permit has been revoked again. The project had been awarded a government subsidy for green energy, but that award will soon expire. However, even without the solar park, enough electricity will remain for the local heat network in Terheijden. A large ‘village windmill’ is under construction for this purpose. De Ridder: „But Terheijden is not an island. Solar energy is a good addition to wind energy for the Dutch power supply.”
NaGa Solar wants to talk to the municipality of Drimmelen about the possible continuation of its plans for solar parks.