Grid capacity
Grid congestion, network reinforcement, connection lead times and the allocation of scarce transport capacity.
- Knowledge Base
Grid-conscious housing: six steps to a neighbourhood that fits the network
The electricity grid increasingly decides whether a housing scheme goes ahead. Grid-conscious construction is presented as a technical fix, but it stands or falls on the agreements between municipality, network operator, developer and resident. A practical guide.
Read more → - Analysis
More objections do not prove the right to object is too broad
TenneT reports a doubling in objections and warns of years of delay. Two days later, the Council of State dismissed every appeal against the Rijswijk to Leiden heat pipeline. Read together, these two reports from the same week tell a different story than either does alone.
Read more → - Policy
From today, grid congestion reaches small consumers too: capacity becomes a question of allocation
As of 1 July 2026, the automatic priority for small consumers on the electricity grid disappears. Grid congestion thereby shifts from a problem affecting a handful of large industrial parties to one touching the whole of society, making it, above all, a stakeholder management challenge.
Read more → - Projects
A 200-megawatt battery next to the neighbourhood: storage as a stakeholder challenge
TenneT is contracting large batteries to relieve the congested grid: the first, Sequoia near Oosterhout, is rated at 200 MW. But the battery that saves the grid still has to stand somewhere. The bottleneck shifts from grid capacity to siting, safety and public support.
Read more → - Analysis
Drinking water is becoming the next grid congestion, and the sector treats it as a permitting problem
All ten Dutch drinking water companies need extra extraction capacity before 2030, but new sources are not materialising. The sector points to slow permitting. We argue: the real bottleneck is the absence of stakeholder and environmental management around the extraction sites.
Read more → - Policy
Buyout scheme for 380kV grid expansion: more generous compensation, tighter deadline for residents
Until 2 July 2026, the preliminary preferred decision for the Vierverlaten-Ens 380 kV connection is open for public review: the first major project to fall under the new buyout scheme for residents within 100 metres of a new overhead high-voltage line. Generous on paper, in practice tighter than many administrators expected: six months to choose between staying or selling.
Read more → - Policy
A connection offer is not a right: what the Goodman ruling means for stakeholder and environmental management
A signed quote from the grid operator is not a delivery promise. The Gelderland court's message to data centre developer Goodman affects far more projects than just data centres, and forces project developers to elevate grid capacity from a technical detail to a central stakeholder and environmental management issue.
Read more → - Knowledge Base
Energy hubs: the coordinator role as the key to collective grid capacity
Connection waiting lists, an Energy Act that enables collective contracts and a regulator that adds households to the queue from 1 July: energy hubs have moved from research topic to a serious option for business parks. The decisive factor is not technology, but coordination.
Read more → - Policy
Queueing for the grid: what the new ACM prioritisation framework means for stakeholder and environmental management from 1 July 2026
From 1 July 2026, anyone applying for an electricity connection in a congested area, from a data centre to a household, will share the same waiting list. The new ACM rules change not just the technical mechanics of grid access, but the politics surrounding it. An analysis of what the prioritisation framework means for municipalities, developers and environmental managers.
Read more → - Analysis
Deutschlandtempo versus the polder model: what Dutch network operators can learn from Germany's acceleration
Germany is building out its high-voltage grid at a pace the Netherlands cannot match. But does faster mean better? A comparison between German emergency legislation and the Dutch polder model, and what stakeholder and environmental management delivers on both sides of the border.
Read more → - Knowledge Base
Six lessons from the ACM review: why transparency is essential for grid expansion
The ACM concluded that the investment plans of Enexis, Liander, Stedin and TenneT were insufficiently substantiated. The network operators are launching an improvement programme. Six lessons on transparency and stakeholder communication that go beyond the investment plan itself.
Read more → - Policy
The new Energy Act 2026: what does it mean for stakeholder and environmental management in energy infrastructure?
Since 1 January 2026, the new Energy Act has been in force in the Netherlands. Network operators become system operators, the connection obligation lapses during congestion, and prioritisation determines who gets capacity and when. What are the consequences for stakeholder and environmental management?
Read more → - Analysis
Grid reinforcement delayed: why stakeholder and environmental management makes the difference
Sixty percent of TenneT's grid expansion projects face an average delay of two and a half years. Better stakeholder and environmental management is the key to acceleration.
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