EU-Digest: Alternative Energy in the Netherlands: Almere to become the home of the worlds third largest Solar Energy Installation

The solar Island in Almere, the Netherlands

A special EU-Digest report on alternative energy applications in the Dutch city of Almere

Alternative Energy in the Netherlands: Almere to become the home of the worlds third largest Solar Energy Installation

Almere the most modern city in Europe, just 25 kilometers east of Amsterdam, is to be home to the world's third-largest solar energy installation. The alternative energy solar complex is being built on a 7,000-square-meter artificial island, and is expected to provide 10 percent of the city's domestic hot water. Only Denmark and Sweden have larger solar energy installations. The City of Almere, which only welcomed its first residents in 1976, has expanded to a city of 175,000 inhabitants and now is the fastest growing city in the Netherlands. Yearly some 6,000 people move there, mainly for its people friendly living environment.

The Sun Island project in Almere funded by the EU is expected to cut 50 per cent of the carbon dioxide levels required to generate necessary energy levels for the 2,700 homes. The Sun Island is just one of the many large-scale revolutionary initiatives taken by Almere that will benefit the environment, making it one of the most advanced alternative energy areas in Europe. People find it not only fun to live there but also a great place to operate a business. Almere presently has some 10,000 companies established within its borders, providing approximately 70,000 jobs, half of them filled by local residents. Another 50,000 Almere residents daily commute to work in Amsterdam by means of an efficient public transport system.

To meet its projected expansion to a city of some 400.000 inhabitants, the Almere City Council has also commissioned American architect William McDonough to develop an entire cradle-to-cradle neighborhood, called Almere Poort (Gate of Almere). It will be completed within the next five years. The cradle-to-cradle theory developed by William McDonough and German chemist and university professor Michael Baungart says that everything humanity needs can be made from environmentally-friendly, 100-per-cent sustainable material. The city, with commercial partners, has also laid an optical fiber network into homes and businesses. Its residents have access to services like flat-fee phone calls; super fast Internet; and digital radio and television (with 90 channels) and IP telephony - where voice calls are sent over the same network as data - which means calls made to numbers within the network are free of charge.

The solar power island in Almere is scheduled to open on June 21, 2009 - the longest day in the northern hemisphere.

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