CEO’s foreword
What comes first: the means or the objective? That was a fundamental question for us while writing our new strategy for the 2023-2027 period. We decided that the objective should have pride of place. First and foremost, we are a company with a social function and our social task takes priority. Next, we attract the financial resources we need to fulfil this social task.
It is a task that is both straightforward and highly complex: ensuring sufficient grid capacity. In other words, making sure that everyone in our service area has access to the grid. Our task is to build, effectively utilise and properly manage our grid. This is what we stand for; this is our mission. By bringing this sharply into focus, we will gain a more visible position in the energy transition.
Over the past five years, we have been increasingly successful in taking the outside world on board - for instance by entering into dialogue with the industrial sector on electrification or with municipalities on the processing times for permit applications. A clear division of roles will help to further clarify the dialogue. And it is essential for us to continue that dialogue. If local authorities and companies allow us to play a role in their plans, this will place us in a better position to help achieve their - and our - ambitions.
We arrived at the new strategy thanks to input from a variety of stakeholders, including customers, municipalities and our own employees. To implement the strategy we need sufficient employees, funding, material resources and we will need to speed up processes. We are working hard to ensure those requirements are in place. Yet our biggest challenge lies elsewhere. Current developments on the grid - over the past year alone demand for an increase in electric power has tripled among heavy-use customers - requires more than just reliable and affordable grid management. We need to become more creative, develop alternatives and join forces with other market parties to explore opportunities to accelerate grid capacity expansion and optimise the use of existing capacity. This is essential to ensure we can serve all our customers (in the generation and consumption segments) within a reasonable term.
That is something to be proud of. Unfortunately though, problems did occur. This year we again had several major disruptions and we also had to cope with two serious incidents, in Zoetermeer and Rijswijk. We deeply regret this, and we are making every possible effort to prevent similar incidents in the future.
We move ahead energetically and decisively, by building capacity and further optimising the way we use the grid. In this way we make sure that everybody receives energy, provides energy and remains energised.
On behalf of the Board of Management,
Koen Bogers
The Board of Management of Stedin Group. From left to right: David Peters, Trudy Onland, Danny Benima, Koen Bogers
