Tuesday marked ten years since the Energy Agreement (Energieakkoord) was signed in the Netherlands. In these ten years, the share of renewable energy rose from 4.7 percent in 2013 to 16.7 percent today. The Dutch Sustainable Energy Association (NVDE) summarized the highlights.
The Energy Agreement is the forerunner of the Climate Agreement and marks the start of serious climate and energy policy in the Netherlands. Much has been achieved since then, for example, in the first half of this year half of the Dutch electricity was renewable, but there is also still much to do, said Olof van der Gaag, chairman NVDE.
The NVDE produced a video (Dutch), to highlight the positive achievements. Some of the achievements made in these ten years include: the share of renewable electricity grew from 5% to 46%, the number of solar panels increased from 2 to 54 million and the number of offshore wind turbines rose from 96 to 671. A total of 60,000 km of new power lines were laid by grid operators. The number of geothermal well rose from 8 to 36.
More on a household-level: the number of well-insulated houses grew from 123,000 tot 1,500,000, heat pumps in homes from 70,000 (2012) to 500,000. The number of electric cars on the road grew from 1,900 to 387,000, while EV-charging points went from 6,000 to 136,000.
Heavy industry saved 2.5 megatons of CO2 per year: as much as the annual emissions of a coal-fired power plant. Source: NVDE
