Solar parks in the Netherlands

The Solar Parks of the Netherlands is a geospatial vector dataset that provides information on the location and extent of all existing land-based solar parks in the Netherlands. The dataset is further enriched with information on underlying landscape factors, including soil type, distance to built-up areas, and the openness of the surrounding land.

The dataset was first created in 2020 and has been updated annually at the end of June. It exclusively includes solar parks constructed on land, excluding those installed on rooftops or water bodies. Additionally, it only covers areas primarily dedicated to solar energy production (i.e., the paneled area), excluding associated buildings and boundary lands.

For each solar park, the dataset provides the following attributes:

    Location – specified in latitude and longitude coordinates.

    Area (hectares) – total surface area covered by the solar park (ha).

    Soil type – dominant soil type within the solar park.

    Municipality – name of the municipality where the solar park is situated.

    Landscape openness – a measure of the visible surface area (ha).

    Distance to built-up areas – measured in kilometers.

The dataset was generated using an automated detection approach based on Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. A machine-learning model employing the random forest algorithm was trained and validated using auxiliary land use datasets, including LGN, BRT TOP10NL, and OpenStreetMap. The detected solar park areas were initially represented as a raster layer and subsequently converted into a vector format.

The precision of boundary delineation varies across the dataset. Approximately half of the solar parks, particularly those constructed in earlier years, have a higher level of precision as a result of additional manual boundary refinement. The additional attributes for each solar park were derived either directly from its geometry or through spatial overlays with ancillary datasets.

The production of this dataset is part of the EcoCertified Solar Parks project.