Focus areas in 2023

Construction

Grid capacity is the top priority in our new strategy (2023-2027). In 2023, we will invest €825 million in our grids and €200 million in works, including maintenance, fixing outages and connections. To facilitate the commercial and sustainable ambitions of customers in our service area, we will realise an additional 425 MVA of transformer capacity for our transmission grid and we will spend close to € 596 million on projects in the low and medium voltage grids and the gas network in our service area. We will create extra grid capacity in the medium-voltage grid, with 500 medium-voltage installations and an additional 1,300 km of electric cables added to the medium and low-voltage grids. In 2023, around 28,000 new homes will be connected and 14,000 maintenance works will be carried out in the Stedin area. We are replacing over 200 km of brittle pipelines and 25,000 primary gas connections. In Zeeland, we will install around 90 stations for the medium and low voltage grids and we will replace more than 300 km of electricity cables and 20 km of gas pipes. We expect to carry out close to 12,000 maintenance jobs for the electricity and gas grids in Zeeland.

To make this possible, we have to ‘start earlier’. We will do this by setting up multidisciplinary teams in 2023 in order to accelerate the preparation phase for 78 transmission stations and cabling routes with a spatial component. We will accelerate work on the distribution grid by investing more proactively and starting with regional multi-year plans. We will also professionalise our regional stakeholder management and invest in management representation on the part of Stedin. We are expanding our expertise by recruiting and training strategic environment managers and project developers, environmental lawyers and management representatives. To be able to build faster, we are focusing on retaining our employees, doubling the capacity for our technical training and attracting new target groups. We will start to use other forms of cooperation and contracts to work more effectively with our contractors and partners. In addition, we will begin with innovations that enable us to work more efficiently and we will improve our processes and systems with a view to achieving 100% supply certainty for materials and project management.

Optimisation

In 2023, the activities under Optimal Use will focus on influencing customer demand, maximum use of technical solutions, congestion management and flexibility solutions. We will also work on grid monitoring and grid management on the basis of better insight and cooperating in the development and elaboration of energy legislation. We aim to increase our influence at locations on the basis of the Regional Energy Strategies (and other policies) and influence future locations for onshore and offshore wind farm connections. We also publish capacity maps. This will reduce the likelihood of congestion, as we will align customer demand with what is possible. In 2023, we will apply the technical solutions for maximum usage of our grids, for instance through the targeted release of the failure reserve (N-1), the application of capacity-restriction contracts and capacity switching.

Using the ‘Flex Challenge’, we investigate and test which flexibility solutions (both technical and contractual) will produce the best results for customers, market parties and Stedin. We will continue to build on the basis for grid monitoring and management, including the use of a modern geographical information system. Stedin will also cooperate in the development and elaboration of energy legislation to facilitate greater usage of the grid.

Management

The reliability of the grids is under pressure. It is thus important that we have good insight into the condition of our grids so that the correct maintenance can be carried out, the failure rate can be accurately estimated and components can be replaced in the correct locations in a timely and efficient manner.

We will carry out our Quality road map for our assets and monitor progress on this in 2023. Among other things, this means that we will improve our risk analyses and failure curve models. We also want to create more synergy between grid expansions and replacement investments. We are improving our installation and operation policy for five asset groups. We also intend to further improve how we deal with failures, for instance through better use of our intelligent failure tracers. This will enable us to resolve failures more quickly.

Other aims and preconditions

We have four other objectives besides our priorities for grid capacity and performance. We will make further progress on improving customer satisfaction and achieving efficiency, we will work on renewing and improving market facilitation, we will continue to improve sustainability in our own operations and we will continue to ensure the safety of our gas grids. We are moreover preparing for a role in alternative heating^.

We have to ensure that the right preconditions are in place in order to realise our plans for 2023 and beyond. First of all, our employees must have a physically and socially safe environment in which to work. And environmental safety is obviously a top priority. Cyber security is another highly important issue, as our grids become more digitalised. Finally, we need sufficient funding, ICT and change capacity and competent and satisfied employees to achieve our ambitions.