Zuidas Solar Challenge
Zhang Ruiqi   Apr 28.2016

Introduction

Timeframe:Start /2011Completion / 2012IntroductionWithin one year the companies situated at the Zuidas want to install 3,000 solar panels on their rooftops. This is the ambitious but achievable target of Next Energy, an initiative started by several professionals from the LinkedIn group Sustainable Energy. A real challenge that on the 31st of December 2011will transform the Zuidas into a progressive and sustainable business centre. Project bureau Zuidas and the Green Business Club have embraced this idea.

Reason to Be Selected

In the years ahead, the Zuidas in Amsterdam will develop 270 hectares of land to create the city centre par excellence for international business and knowledge development. Four hundred trendsetting, internationally operating companies have already established a base at the Zuidas. One of the biggest universities in the Netherlands, and a trendsetting university medical centre are prominent features in this precinct. The Zuidas has placed a sharp focus on two aspects, namely, cooperation between companies and involvement in the developments and, secondly , sustainability.

Details

Next Energy has adopted the theme of sustainability for the launch of the Zuidas Solar Challenge. The action plan,
to install 3,000 solar panels on the roofs at the Zuidas, was drawn up by a small group of professionals. There are 30,000 people working at the Zuidas, whereby the idea arose to set up one solar panel for every 10 people. The aim is to make the Zuidas less dependent on limited energy sources. Another motivation for the plan is to demonstrate that a group of companies can jointly take significant steps rendering the Netherlands less dependent on non-sustainable energy resources, without any government support.

Objectives:

The ambition of the Zuidas Solar Challenge is to install 3,000 solar panels in and around the Zuidas within one year. This is equivalent to a capacity of 0.5 MW. An innovative objective that can be achieved by actively engaging all the companies and their staff, as well as all the residents of the Zuidas. The challenge will also serve as a test project, which means that it is important to learn from it and to analyze which approaches work and which do not.

Research
The impact the Zuidas Solar project will have on the climate goals of the city will be taking into account. In many ways, the most interesting aspect of this project is the challenging approach. The main purpose of the research is therefore to determine the level of participation by the companies in the area and the reasons why they do or do not intend to participate. One of the other goals is to determine the critical success or failure factors of such a project. The aim is to define to what extent and under which circumstances this kind of challenge is feasible.

 



Lat: 52.3746
Lng: 4.89861
Type:
Region: Europe
Scale: District
Field: Environment
City: Amsterdam