Protest signs at Nergena in 2020. Photo Resource After nearly seven years of wrangling, the plan to build the eight-hectare Nergena Solar Farm is being ditched. A few months after the permit was declared final at the end of last year, WUR is pulling the plug on the plan. The Nergena Solar Farm plan was launched in 2018 by WUR and the Wageningen company LC Energy.
The solar farm was to be constructed along Dijkgraaf, north of the campus, on land WUR had acquired a year earlier by buying the Nergena farm on Langesteeg. The land is adjacent to WUR’s experimental fields. Due to poor soil quality, the land has been partly used by Unifarm since then, says spokesperson Martijn van den Heuvel (Facilities & Services).
Opposition
Local residents opposed the plan from the start, which also met with a lot of resistance among local politicians in Ede. The wrangling to get a permit led to various court hearings. A few months after the permit was declared final at the end of last year, WUR is pulling the plug on the plan.
The design for which the permit has been granted no longer seamlessly matches the vision WUR has for the development of solar farms and the use of its land
Martijn van den Heuvel, WUR Facilities & Services
LC Energy says the market for solar energy has changed so much that the solar farm can no longer be constructed. WUR says it pulled the plug on the project. ‘Time has caught up on us’, Van den Heuvel says. ‘The design for which the permit has been granted no longer seamlessly matches the vision WUR has for the development of solar farms and the use of its land.’
Value
‘Research in this field has progressed in recent years’, Van den Heuvel states. ‘The plans for a solar farm with LC Energy, which the permit was granted, do not offer room for these developments, which led WUR to conclude that the project no longer holds the desired value.’ Van den Heuvel refers to WUR’s Solar Research Programme, which studies the development of profitable sustainable solar farms that contribute to biodiversity. The farm along Dijkgraaf was to be included in this research. Changing the concept would require a new procedure, which is a road WUR does not want to take.
What will happen with the land is unclear. Van den Heuvel: ‘This decision was recently made; we are still considering how the land can be put to use in the future.’
