“With a significant amount of the world’s solar PV modules currently being produced on Dutch equipment,” notes Paul Stassen, TULiPPS Solar B.V. managing director, “the Netherlands are well represented in the world of solar. That’s why we’re so excited to learn that TULiPPS Solar was one of three companies nominated for the 2012 Dutch Solar Innovation Awards in the Industrial Development category.
Sponsored by Dutch Solar Magazine, the Dutch Solar Awards is a competition designed to showcase the best of the Dutch solar-energy sector by recognizing innovation in four award categories. Winners will be announced mid-February 2012. The Industry Development category recognizes a company that excels in achieving an industrial innovation (in 2011) that advances the progress of industry and the solar market on a global scale. . “It’s a really big honour for any company to be nominated in this competition, and it is especially exciting for a startup like ours,” added Stassen. The other three award categories include: Project Development, Young Solar, and Solar Thesis.
The start-up’s new patent-pending COSMOS module technology was developed in partnership with leading companies in the automotive composites, roofing, and PV industries, and with financial support from the Province of Noord-Brabant and assistance from the Brabantse Ontwikkelingsmaatschappij in the Netherlands.
The modules comprise tough but lightweight automotive-grade composites, while the company claims that they boast the industry’s highest light transparency (95% vs. 91% achieved with thicker low-iron solar glass) and therefore offers greater energy conversion per unit area.
Other nominations for the awards are: Schiebroek Energie and Solland Solar in the Industry Development category; Han van Zwieten Architecten BNA, Scheuten Solar, and Yellow Step Solar in the Project Development category; Eternal Sun, Femtogrid, and SoLayTec for the Young Solar Award; and Johan Bijleveld, Gijs Dingemans, and Jan-Willem Schüttauf for their solar theses.
Dutch technology in Africa
In other news, another successful Dutch PV module manufacturer, Ubbink B.V., is now exploiting its know-how in Africa, having opened a manufacturing facility with an annual output of 30,000 modules in Naivasha (Kenya) last year. The modules produced in the plant are certified by the Kenya Bureau of Standards.
The plant produces modules for smaller PV systems, including "solar home systems" for areas not served by electricity grids. “Our solar factory – the first in the whole of East and Central Africa – is also kick starting local industry," stated Ubbink East Africa CEO, Haijo Kuper.
"Within the space of a year, we managed to qualify more than 30 employees for a technology that is completely new for East Africa and which is our contribution to the continent’s on-going development.”
Sunshine online
Back in November, meanwhile, the US residential solar installer,Sungevity Inc., established its first deal outside the US in Holland, after taking a minority stake in the Dutch start-up, Zonline BV. The Dutch solar installer is offering rooftop power systems to consumers using a fixed-rate pricing model similar to the solar leases provided by Sungevity.
Holland certainly isn’t the sunniest place in Europe, so the question may be asked why Sungevity chose to do a deal there. The answer lies in the fact that the country has the continent’s second-highest electricity rates. Therefore, what Zonline (which roughly translates as "sunshine online") is offering homeowners is to pay 23 to 28 euro cents over 20 years a fixed rate for electricity generated by panels that the Amsterdam-based company installs for free, Chief Executive Officer Roebyem Anders told Bloomberg at the time. Residential customers in the Netherlands typically pay 23 euro cents a kilowatt-hour for power, a price she said is likely to increase over time.
[Inset: Photo of Zonline's team in Amsterdam (Holland)]
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