Solar Farm Kerkrade: the first ground mounted for RWE

In September 2020, construction work began on Zonnepark Kerkrade, RWE's first ground-mounted solar farm in the Netherlands. The solar farm covers twelve hectares of fields and meadows in the municipality of Kerkrade (province of Limburg).

The park is divided into two fields. The northernmost field has 16,770 panels, while the southern field has 19,266 panels.

The solar panels are mounted on a substructure for which 9,000 double steel poles are anchored in the ground. The panels are installed at an angle of 8 degrees directly facing south. The electricity generated by the solar panels (direct current) is converted via so-called converters into alternating current with a voltage of approximately 1,250 volts. Two step-up transformers increase this voltage to 10,000 volts in order to connect the park to the local electricity grid.

The yield of the solar farm depends on the number of hours of sunshine per year. During an average sunny year, the park produces 14,000,000 kWh (kilowatt hours). That is the annual consumption of 4,000 households (average of 3,500 kWh per year). There are 22,967 households in the municipality of Kerkrade (CBS, 1-1-2020). The farm was designed for RWE by the Dutch company Volta Solar, which also built the farm.