The Pieter Breughel Community House in Veghel will also have 100 units installed, as part of Vanderlande’s corporate social responsibility activities. Vanderlande’s Facilities team has long been involved in energy-saving measures and sustainability ambitions. As such, the idea to install solar panels on the campus in Veghel had been in the pipeline for some time.
“We wanted to achieve a ‘BREEAM* Outstanding’ rating for the new office building (60) and with an SDE+ subsidy** in place, we began a study of whether we could expand the number of solar panels on site,” says Vanderlande’s Executive Manager Real Estate, Erik-Jan Dik. “However, the panels couldn’t all fit on Building 60, so we chose to install them across the rest of the campus.”
The panels work by using photo-voltaic cells to convert solar energy into electricity. Generated power is either supplied to the national electricity grid, stored or used directly. The power output of the solar panels in Veghel will be 1MWp (or 850,000kWh) per year and account for 15% of Vanderlande’s annual energy consumption.
“This initiative shows that Vanderlande values sustainability and wants to lead the way,” adds Erik-Jan. “With the knowledge and experience we now have of working with this invaluable technology, we’re hoping that our Customer Centres will follow suit and increase Vanderlande’s global coverage of solar panels even further.”
*BREEAM stands for ‘building research establishment environmental assessment method’ and is the certification method used to create a more sustainable environment.
** The SDE+ is an incentive scheme for the production of renewable energy in The Netherlands.