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| Almere Sun Island |
For the first time in the Netherlands, homes are heated collectively
with locally-generated solar energy. NUON built Almere Sun Island and
connected it to its district heating network.
Since May 2010 Almere Sun Island has supplied heating and hot tap water
to the new Almere residential district Noorderplassen-West. The solar
island is in keeping with the urban planning for the residential area
and is an icon in the Almere landscape. The 520 solar collectors have a
surface area of 7,000 m2, about one and a half football fields. It is
one of the largest solar collector fields in the world.
The project by Dutch energy company NUON is part of its long range plans
to make its energy supply innovative and sustainable. The solar island
supplies 9.750 Gigajoules of sustainable energy annually. That is 10%
of the annual heating needs of the 2,700 houses in the district, or the
energy used by taking a million showers a year. Nuon provides the
remaining heat using environmentally friendly residual heat from their
nearby bio-fed power plant in Almere.
In addition the solar collectors and district heating together reduce
CO2 emissions by more than 50% compared to gas-fired heating. That is
equivalent to driving 30 million fewer kilometres a year.
Almer-Digest
Almere Zoneiland (Sun Island) is located in the Noorderplassen-West district in Almere and it is the first project in the Netherlands, where houses in a residential area is heated by a single solar energy system collectively.