Starting from August 1, Amsterdam City Council is accepting project applications for its rebate scheme for community rooftop solar projects “Dak voor de Stad”.

The scheme is open to rooftop PV projects with at least 100 kW of capacity and to “solar cooperatives” with a minimum of ten members, and provides rebates ranging from €5,000 to €30,000 depending on the project size, which will cover a portion of the cost for purchasing and installing the PV systems.

Collective PV projects in Amsterdam may receive the support of the Amsterdamse Zoncoalitie, an independent association of PV suppliers, installers and cooperatives that aims to increase the share of residential and commercial PV in the city’s electricity mix.

Amsterdam’s city government started to promote rooftop PV in 2013. At the time, when only 9 MW of PV systems were connected to the grid in the city territory, the local government said it aimed to install another 150 MW (around 950,000 square metres of solar panels) by 2020.

Since then, several measures have been taken to simplify the procedures for installing residential and commercial PV systems and a series of incentives have been granted to private citizens, entrerprises, communities and solar cooperatives. One of these measures, which allows proponents of solar projects not to pay any fee to the city administration for filing their applications, entered into force on Jan. 1, 2017. This little form of incentive, however, will expire at the end of 2018.