Some years back, the Netherlands committed to a plan for their trains to run on entirely renewable energy by 2018. It seems that the country has managed to achieve their goal an entire year ahead of schedule, as January of this year saw all public transport trains running on wind power.
The Netherlands is aggressively pursuing the development of wind energy, befitting a country known for its historical windmills. Currently, there are some 2,200 wind turbines across the whole country, according to DutchNews.nl. The trains use about 1.2 billion kWh of the electricity generated by these turbines. For reference, this is about the total power consumption of all the homes in Amsterdam combined.
Eneco, a Dutch renewable energy company, supplied most of the wind turbines for the project. Eneco account manager Michel Kerkhof is proud of what the partnership achieved.
“What makes this contract and partnership unique is that a whole sector decreases its CO2 footprint enormously and sets an example for other sectors to follow,” says Kerkhof.
Wind energy has taken off in the Netherlands over the past decade, and to keep up other European nations have also invested in increasing the production of their renewable energy platforms. Scotland reported in August of last year that the country’s wind farms could produce 106 percent of their total energy needs, and it is planning to achieve zero-carbon emission by 2020. To achieve the goal of 100% zero-carbon, Scotland is pursuing tidal power generation.
Meanwhile, the Netherlands has also just opened a large offshore wind farm, the Gemini wind park, capable of producing 2.6 TWh of electricity every year. The farm is able to provide enough power to approximately 785,000 Dutch homes.
