Predicting and managing customer demand

In order to prevent more congestion areas in our coverage area, our predictions of customer demand must be as accurate as possible. If we notice that our grid at a specific location is nearing its capacity limits, we can proactively look for alternatives with customers looking for (an expansion of) transmission capacity. In that case, we will look for the most appropriate solutions together with customers, depending on the local situation and the kind of connection. We will also publish capacity maps, so that customers looking for a location to establish their business can see where capacity is still available.

We want to have proper insight into the current load and voltage quality of our grid. Therefore, in 2023 we continued our activities on the medium-voltage grid, including, among other things, the further roll-out, development and testing of third-generation digitalisation in medium-voltage stations: the ‘DA3 boxes’. This digital metering device helps us obtain better insight into the load, voltage quality and environmental conditions (including humidity and temperature) of medium-voltage stations. We aim to equip over 22,000 medium-voltage units with this smart technology in the next seven years. Unfortunately, the roll-out of DA3 has so far been slower than expected, because its implementation makes great demands of people, processes and systems. Early in 2024, the first DA3 boxes were installed and we started an incremental scale-up in order to achieve our target by 2031. In the meantime, we are constantly looking into how we can accelerate the process and complete it before 2031.