Solar park Kriekampen its doors will open on the national ‘Open Energy day’ on Saturday September 20th. Will you be there? Please let us know here.
The Kriekampen solar park is located in the municipality of Oirschot, between the A58 motorway and the Wilhelmina Canal. The solar park covers approximately 25 hectares and has a capacity of approximately 35 MWp. To give you an idea, this is equivalent to the annual consumption of almost 10,000 average Dutch households. Or another nice example: the annual Light Route in Eindhoven consumes an estimated tens of thousands of kWh of electricity. Kriekampen Solar Park generates that in less than an hour!
Contribution to the energy targets of the municipality of Oirschot
The municipality of Oirschot aims to be energy neutral by 2040. To achieve this, the municipality is focusing on energy savings and solar panels on roofs, but also on large-scale sustainable energy projects, such as solar parks. The municipality’s policy framework (2020), which sets out how, where and how much solar and wind energy can be generated, can be found here. Based on this policy framework, on 1 June 2021, the Oirschot municipal council designated Kriekampen as a search area for the development of solar parks. TPSolar has drawn up plans for the Kriekampen Solar Park in this search area. The solar park is an important step in making the municipality of Oirschot and the province of North Brabant more sustainable.
Sustainable energy with an eye for nature
The total project area covers 25 hectares, of which 19 hectares within the fence will be used for the technical installation. The remaining area will be used for green spaces, including kilometres of new hedges and trees. Approximately 13,000 new plants and trees have been planted. A new footpath will also be created, and various measures will be taken to accommodate the animals in the area. For example, a beetle bank has been created at the edge of the solar park and wide strips of flowers and herbs have been sown.
Smartly designed and grid-friendly
Due to increasing pressure on the electricity grid, the solar park has been designed with grid-friendliness in mind. There are two types of panel configurations: a south-facing configuration and a so-called “butterfly configuration”. This is to limit the load on the solar park’s cable and distribute the generation more evenly throughout the day. An energy storage system will also be added to the solar park in the future. Simply put, the battery stores electricity when it is not needed and supplies it when it is needed.
Collaboration with local and regional companies
TPSolar works with local and regional partners wherever possible. For the construction, management and maintenance, Oirschot-based companies Heerebeek Cultuurtechniek (landscaping) and Jan de Kroon (earthworks) have been engaged, among others. Even the flock of sheep that grazes the land comes from the region (Rob Adriaans Schapenhouderij, Eindhoven). TPSolar always seeks out partners with whom it can enter into long-term cooperation. The solar park will be in place for 25 years, and during the operating period it is nice to be able to quickly switch gears with companies in the neighbourhood.
Eight landowners
Eight local landowners played a crucial role in the realisation of this project. They made part of their land available for the solar park as a way of investing in the future of their farming businesses. One of these landowners is Van Gerven Asperges, located a stone’s throw from the solar park. They explain their reasons for using part of their land as follows: “The idea of a solar park on our land arose about eight years ago. We saw opportunities; it is dry land, not high-quality farmland. For example, it is unsuitable for growing asparagus. It is also located in a blind spot, between the motorway and the Wilhelmina Canal. No one lives there, hardly anyone visits, and the land is difficult to access for agricultural machinery. With this solar park, we are investing in the future.”
How residents of Oirschot can benefit even more from this solar park
We sought to collaborate with the KempenStroom energy cooperative to achieve 50% local ownership. In January 2025, the KempenStroom board consulted its members on whether or not to participate in the Kriekampen Solar Park. The board’s final recommendation was not to participate, given the risks of the project and the financial position of the cooperative. The boards of KempenStroom and TPSolar are disappointed that the partnership for Zonnepark Kriekampen cannot go ahead. However, KempenStroom stands by its decision: it is currently the only correct and sensible decision for the cooperative and its members.
Now that the energy cooperative has been unable to participate in the solar park project B.V., local residents and residents of the municipality of Oirschot will have the opportunity to invest in the solar park through bonds on a priority basis. We previously collaborated with ZonHub (formerly: ZonnepanelenDelen) for this purpose. Bonds involve little risk, as agreements have been made on a fixed return for a fixed term. TPSolar aims to open this crowdfunding later this year.
An environmental fund is currently being set up, which is linked to the green energy generated by the solar park and is intended to allow local residents to share in the profits. It is up to the local community itself to decide how the money from the environmental fund will be spent, for example on a nice walking trail, a playground or better insulation for homes in the neighbourhood. At the end of last year, we organised an information meeting on this subject, together with KempenStroom. We then discussed with a number of residents how we could organise this and what the proceeds could be spent on. We subsequently drew up fund regulations with “rules of the game”. The idea is that KempenStroom will manage the fund, but that the actual spending will be decided annually with local residents. A follow-up meeting will be held to explain this in more detail to the neighbourhood. The aim is to make the first contribution to the fund in May 2026.
A sustainability fund will also be established. Similar to the environmental fund, an annual amount will be paid into the municipality’s sustainability fund. This will be used to support various sustainability initiatives.
There is local power consumption. The green power from Zonnepark Kriekampen will be supplied to the (green) energy company Scholt Energy in Eindhoven for the first few years. They are an energy supplier with more than 12,500 companies as customers.
In addition to large-scale sustainable energy projects such as solar parks, solar panels on roofs are also important. TPSolar has therefore covered part of the purchase costs of the solar panels on the roofs of residents in the area. We call this a sun-on-roof offer for the residents around the solar park. All residents living within 500 metres of the solar park received this proposal for solar panels already installed or yet to be installed on their roofs, which meant they received a financial contribution of €1,000. Local residents have until the end of 2025 to take advantage of this offer.
Contact
Do you have a question about solar park Kriekampen? Please contact developer Emma Hendriks at emma.hendriks@tpsolar.nl or 023 741 01 44