The Dutch Ministry of Ministry of Economic Affairs said this week that it has selected 1.913 MW of PV projects in the 2022 round of the SDE++ (Stimulering Duurzame Energieproductie) program for large-scale solar and renewable energy projects.

RVO said the allocated PV capacity is represented by 1.051 MW of commercial and industrial PV systems. Another 862 MW comes from utility-scale PV plants to be built on land or water, with only 39 MW being assigned to wind power projects. Overall, the agency has allocated 2,813 MW of capacity spread across different renewable energy technologies, as well as other technologies for CO2 capture and heating.

The Dutch government initially allocated a budget of €13 billion ($14.6 billion) for the previous year's round, but only managed to allocate €11.9 billion. CO2 capture technologies received the largest share of €6.7 billion, while solar secured only €963 million, resulting in significantly reduced resources compared to the previous round.

The RVO said the lower budget allocation for the PV technology was mainly due to the grid congestion issues that are currently affecting the Netherlands' power network.

“In those areas, a subsidy applicant usually does not receive a transmission approval from the network operator, which is a requirement for obtaining the subsidies,” the agency said. “In addition, rooftop PV projects were required to indicate the installation constructor for the first time.”

In the previous round of the program, the Dutch government selected 3,426 PV projects with a combined capacity of 3,535 MW.

The Netherlands could reach between 100 GW and 180 GW of total installed solar capacity by 2050, according to a new report by Netbeheer Nederland, the Dutch association of national-regional electricity and gas network operators.

The country reached a cumulative installed PV capacity of 16.5 GW at the end of June 2022, according to the most recent statistics from CBS, the nation’s statistics agency. It said the nation installed 3,803 MW in 2021 and 3,882 MW in 2022.