Interview: David Peters and Huib van Essen

The challenges on the electricity grid require close cooperation with municipalities, provinces and other regional stakeholders. This is why provincial Energy Boards were set up early in 2023. By discussing plans at an early stage, we can speed up processes and planning procedures. The purpose of all this is to expand and make better use of the grid as soon as possible. CTO David Peters talks to Huib van Essen, a member of the Utrecht Provincial Executive, about how we are together designing solutions for the overloaded power grid.

Huib: “In 2023, we were confronted with the impact of an overloaded power grid. This was also the year in which the province of Utrecht and Stedin extended their cooperation, for example in the Energy Board, to find out what steps we can take in order to cope with the overloaded power grid. In this year, I had more meetings with Stedin (and TenneT) than in all previous years put together.”

Pioneering role for Energy Board

David: “Such cooperation is indeed essential if we want to find solutions, and I am delighted that ours is so successful. The Energy Board in Utrecht was launched early in 2023 and has a pioneering role in the consultative process we envisage for the Netherlands. This is because we are not avoiding or denying the challenges, or pointing the finger at anyone, but really want to tackle this together. In my experience it is also a blessing, Huib, that you have both energy and spatial planning in your portfolio. After all, finding space for energy infrastructure is a huge challenge.

Huib: “Successful cooperation does not make the problems any smaller, but it does make it easier to find solutions.”

David: “Take prioritisation, for instance. The current rules based on ‘first-come, first-served’ no longer work. We discuss how we can do this differently, by looking at the social impact of connecting or not connecting a particular customer.”

Huib: “We need to switch to social prioritisation, but together giving shape to this has proved easier said than done. The possibilities for doing so are still limited.”

David: “This is because prioritisation does not create capacity. As a country, we are not good at these sort of things. I also see that happening when we want to run pilot projects, for example. That requires people being willing to allow someone else to carry out their project. Those situations quickly turn in to a ‘who wins, who loses’ discussion. This is why we need a set of rules for such projects. The possibilities currently offered by the ACM for prioritising customer connections are limited and complicated.”

‘Public authorities or grid managers?’

Huib: “Yes, we do need more flexible rules in order to do that. Especially now that the available capacity is in the red in Utrecht. And it should be clear who is responsible: the public authorities or the grid managers. That should be determined in the near future.”

David: “We tend to over-regulate in the Netherlands. That also holds true for prioritisation. People would prefer having computer model that tells them who will be connected and who will not, but that would leave no room for manoeuvre at all. And it is room for manoeuvre that we need. If we over-regulate everything at this stage, the whole process will take longer. You can only accelerate by just doing it and experimenting. That may involve having to accept some occasional collateral damage , but we cannot afford the alternative of getting bogged down in all sorts of debates with nothing happening in the meantime. Let’s just get a move on.”

“Another point on which we are trying to accelerate is capacity distribution,” says David. “We have made progress in that area as well.”

Huib: “Cooperation in the Energy Board means that grid capacity limitations are flagged up earlier. Until recently, energy infrastructure was not a spatial planning issue. But it should definitely become that and should actually already be that now. So that is what we are trying to organise. For example, we want some kind of energy assessment to be included in the regulation to which we are subject.”

David: “These kinds of issues are currently weighed up without the involvement of our spatial planning experts. That is because they tend to operate more in the tactical domain, which is about obtaining land for our infrastructure. Weighing up the broader issues involved in the allocation of space, that is where can accelerate in the long term. The fact that you are wearing two hats is actually a big help in that respect.”

David: “Looking ahead to 2024 and beyond, what are your expectations?”

‘With trepidation’

Huib: “It's not in my nature, but I am quite pessimistic about developments around the electricity grid in the coming year. The situation we are in is deeply concerning. I look ahead to the coming year with trepidation. Will we actually be able to find enough means for coming up with solutions? At present, it already affects house building in our province, and chances are that things will get worse. That will obviously cause great upheaval, and rightly so.”

David: “Of course we feel that bad news is imminent. New locations will be added where the electricity grid is full and customers will end up on the waiting list. I do bear that in mind. I also consider questions such as ‘should we prioritise differently?’, ‘will we find enough flexibility?’ and ‘will low-use consumers be hit harder?’ At the same time, I also expect breakthroughs on the spatial planning side and accelerations we can facilitate together in that respect. For instance, will we manage to expand the Breukelen-Kortrijk high-voltage station and thereby create capacity for the whole province? I expect to encounter setbacks in 2024 and subsequent years, but also to reap the benefits of the seeds we have planted together.”

Huib: “Yes, if Breukelen-Kortrijk turns out to be a way to move things along, it may not be acceptable if its realisation takes years. In that case, we should look at options to bring it forward. I think that the urgency will force us into a different dynamic and to make more drastic choices.”