Today the largest wind farm in the Netherlands has opened in the Wieringermeer. A big party for those closely involved, of course, because the park has the capacity to generate electricity for almost 400,000 households. However, by far most of this flow goes to a Microsoft data center. Dutch households therefore do not benefit from it …
And so the Green Dream seems to explode, because it is not the Dutch citizen that benefits from green electricity, but ‘big capital’. For local residents it is a bitter pill, they did not feel that their objections were taken seriously from the start. And now it also appears that the vast majority of electricity from this park does not go to Dutch households but to Microsoft.
“Very good, that green electricity,” he says, “but it is a pity that much of that power goes to Microsoft, to that data center, and we as a neighborhood benefit far too little from it.”
About 1100 local residents objected to the arrival of the park, but it was successful. The park is here, and Microsoft will be grateful to the government for it.
Vattenfall, the company that built the park, believes that local residents should have criticized the government’s policies and not Vattenfall. Government policy ensures that Microsoft is able to get that much power from this new park.
“The only thing we are concerned with is greening the energy supply and everyone can use that, including Microsoft. And also the households here in the Wieringermeer. ”
