Bert Broens
February 12, 2020 – 1:48 PM
The logistics group Heylen and the insurer AG Insurance are building 20 football fields’ worth of solar panels in Venlo, the Netherlands.
The title of the world’s most powerful rooftop solar installation will soon go to the Venlo E-Commerce Logistic Campus in Venlo, the Netherlands.
On this logistics building, work began earlier this year on the installation of 48,040 solar panels. The system is expected to be operational in June. It will cover an area of 12.6 hectares—the equivalent of 20 football fields—and will have a capacity of more than 18 MWp.
4,500 households
For comparison: that’s enough to supply 4,500 households with electricity for an entire year and should make it possible to reduce CO₂ emissions by 12,000 tons annually. In practice, the panels will provide enough power for the building itself and other users.
The project is being realized by AG Heylen Energy, an alliance between the logistics real estate group Heylen Warehouses from Herentals and AG Real Estate, the property branch of insurer AG Insurance (Ageas), created for large-scale green energy projects.
Belfius is providing financing for AG Heylen Energy. The bank is investing €15.3 million, most of which is going to the project in Venlo. IZEN, one of Belgium’s leading turnkey photovoltaic system suppliers and a key partner of Belfius, is also involved, as is engineering firm Encon, another partner of the bank.