Solarfields – producer of renewable energy – and MOJO – organizer of large-scale events – will start realizing the world’s largest solar carport in November this year. The solar park will be built in the Lowlands car park and will cover an area of 35 hectares. The solar carport will be operational in May 2021 and consists of 90,000 solar panels producing around 35,000,000 kWh of electricity annually.
di Nikki McNeill
Eric van Eerdenburg, director at Lowlands explains: “Without swift and concrete measures our young visitors will experience the effects of climate change and environmental pollution in their daily lives.
As a festival organization we want to be part of the solution and contribute to an optimistic view of the future. We hope to be a source of inspiration for our visitors to play their part – no matter how small – in making the world more sustainable.
About 12 years ago we started research on how improve sustainability within our business operations. Actualizing this together with Solarfields on a large scale is a long-held dream come true.”
Jelmer Pijlman, director at Solarfields, adds enthusiastically: ”Over the past 2.5 years, we have worked hard with MOJO to address all challenges involved in a project of this magnitude. We were fortunate to get a great deal of authority support along the way and think it is fantastic that we can announce this now. The location is perfect for making The Netherlands more sustainable and this project is a wonderful example of multiple land use: parking and sustainable energy production in the same space!”
Ton van Amerongen, alderperson in the Dronten city council, is proud to host the world’s largest solar carport in his municipality. “Lowlands has already proven to be an event with enormous social commitment. The fact that we can contribute to meeting our climate objectives with the festival organization and Solarfields is fantastic.”
Sustainable Festival
The Lowlands Festival takes place annually at a fixed location in Biddinghuizen. For years now, the organization has worked hard to make the festival more sustainable. Energy consumption has proven to be a particular challenge. A single Lowlands edition demands approximately 300,000 kWh of electricity, most of which is currently produced by generators. With the construction of the solar carport the festival is making huge progress in boosting sustainability.
Largest Sustainable Car Park 
The surface area of the sustainable car park covers a total of 35 hectares, offering space for 15,000 cars. Through 90,000 solar panels the system delivers a capacity of 35 MWp, enough to supply around 10,000 households with green energy. This is equivalent to the energy consumption of roughly 100 festival weekends annually. The solar carport will be a permanent asset at this location.
Dual land use
The solar-paneled roof will provide cover for parked cars and generate sustainable energy at the same time. An important aspect of the design process of the carport was ensuring full parking capacity, a focus that resulted in optimal dual land use for this location.
Solarfields
Solarfields is a renewable energy producer and realizes solar-energy systems. The company is market leader in large-scale land-based solar parks. Solarfields realizes solar projects at various types of locations such as land, roofs, former landfill sites and parking areas. It aims to make The Netherlands more sustainable and supply 1 million households with clean energy by 2030.
