The Netherlands has emerged as a leader in renewable energy adoption, significantly increasing its use of electric cars and solar power. Currently, more than one-third of Dutch homes are equipped with installed solar panels. Consequently, the Netherlands now ranks first in Europe with the most charging points per capita, making it one of the leaders in the green energy revolution. This incredibly accelerated transition is placing never-before-seen pressure on the country’s power grid. Unanticipated grid congestion has become a challenge that government and industry leaders are now taking the lead in addressing.
The Dutch government is committed to ensuring that offshore wind farms provide the majority of energy by 2030. As the need for electricity has grown and changed shape, the faults in our existing grid infrastructure have become more apparent. Tennet, the operator responsible for the high-voltage electricity grid in the Netherlands, is planning to invest €200 billion in reinforcing the grid. It is an ambitious project indeed, as it would require laying about 100,000 kilometers of new cables until 2050 to support additional capacity and improve reliability.
With grid congestion already costing the Dutch economy as much as €35 billion per year, the need for action on these issues is urgent. Tennet’s Chief Executive Eugene Beijings admitted that the current capacities need to be extended by an order of magnitude in order to satisfy future demands.
“To strengthen and reinforce the grid, we need to double, triple, sometimes increase tenfold the capacity of the existing grid.” – Eugene Beijings
The Dutch electricity grid had been built around a handful of large centralized gas plants. This configuration is increasingly outdated as we move towards a system that leans more heavily on distributed, renewable, and clean energy resources. Chief Executive of Eneco, Kees-Jan Rameau, outlined the difficulties of integrating renewables. As more and more renewables spill into the grid, they’re frequently connecting to places with tighter power lines.
“Nowadays we’re switching to renewables, and that means there’s a lot of power being injected into the grid in the outskirts of the network where there are only relatively small power lines.” – Kees-Jan Rameau
Rameau discussed how consumers can improve their energy resilience. He pointed to solutions such as retrofitting homes with heat pumps and charging EVs in garages.
“Often consumers want to install a heat pump, or charge their electric vehicle at home, but that requires a much bigger power connection, and increasingly they just cannot get it.” – Kees-Jan Rameau
The Dutch national government has been proactive in constraining this tide. It has launched public service announcements urging citizens not to charge their electric vehicles during peak hours to alleviate some pressure on the grid.
“When we all use electricity at the same time, our power grid gets overloaded,” – Actress in Dutch government TV campaign “Flip the Switch”.
Central to these efforts, ad campaigns promote the idea of lowering overall electricity use during peak demand/peak usage times.
“This can cause malfunctions. So, use as little electricity as possible between four and nine.” – Actress in Dutch government TV campaign “Flip the Switch”
The Ministry for Climate Policy and Green Growth has hit on an important truth. They think the pace and scale of the spike in electricity usage has been significantly underestimated. As new sectors and households add to this growth in unexpected ways, it creates even more challenges for the management of the grid.
“In hindsight, the speed at which our electricity consumption has grown might have been collectively underestimated in the past by all parties involved. It is also hard to predict where the growth will occur first.” – Ministry for Climate Policy and Green Growth
As the transition to renewable energy accelerates, Tennet faces a significant backlog of requests from companies wanting to connect to the grid. Rameau said that for every request they receive, it makes this waiting list worse.
“And meanwhile, the energy transition is going that fast that we cannot cope with it, with the existing grid. So every additional request [to connect] is adding to the waiting list.” – Tennet
Grid congestion is more than a nuisance to consumers — it endangers foundational sectors like the Dutch chemical industry. As Nienke Homan, the Dutch infrastructure minister, observed, if we do not improve our infrastructure, the investments will move to countries with a better developed energy system.
“Grid congestion is putting the future of the Dutch chemical industry at risk… while in other countries it will be easier to invest.” – Nienke Homan
After all, projects focused on building up and strengthening the existing grid often require much more time to get started before they’re active. On average, it takes nearly a full decade from idea to completion. The most productive first eight years are often spent just getting legislation passed and getting right-of-way for needed infrastructure.
The Netherlands have dedicated themselves to this kind of sustainable energy future. In order to keep the economy humming and make room for innovative new energy technologies, it needs to address growing grid congestion head on. The keys to successful implementation are genuine collaboration and mutual accountability between government bodies and energy providers. Further, their partnership will be key in both modernizing and expanding the grid’s capacity.