Michiel van Schalkwijk

Michiel van Schalkwijk is Managing Director of Solarwatt BV. He is also the Chair of ZRN’s Board and a Board Member of the OPEN Foundation.

In the sector since 1994

Michiel is a physicist and graduated in solar cell research in 1994. Since then, he has always worked in the solar energy branch. Since the start of his career he has worked on creating a good framework for introducing solar cells and on expanding the market and making it more professional.

Michiel has co-authored subsidy programmes, set up and chaired a standards committee and managed international introduction programmes. He has founded subsidiaries of Solarwatt in various countries and is now responsible for expanding the activities in North West Europe.

Co-founder and Chair of ZRN

Michiel is one of the founders of ZRN and has been its Chair since the very beginning. His idea behind setting up ZRN was to help enable as many producers in the Netherlands as possible comply with the recycling laws at acceptable costs.

An important step in this process was the founding of the OPEN Foundation and the ratification of the General Binding Statement for all solar panel producers. “The General Binding Statement decrees that all producers need to comply with the directive under precisely the same conditions. This makes it possible to create a level playing field.”

Board member of the OPEN Foundation

ZRN’s Board has named Michiel as Board Member of the OPEN Foundation. He uses this role to make sure that the sector is represented properly among all the other product groups at the OPEN Foundation. He also strives to ensure that the costs of recycling born by manufacturers and importers are in line with an appropriate and comprehensive infrastructure for the recycling of solar panels.