Expansion of our grid

Investing more than ever

The most important solution for the transmission shortage is the expansion of the electricity grid. We are working hard on this. We expanded our grid capacity in 2023 by 2.18 gigawatt (including replacements and congestion management). We invested in total € 1,214 million in the expansion and maintenance of our grids, € 187 million more than in 2022. This increase is the direct consequence of the energy transition.

The realisation is about € 126 million lower than the plan of € 1,340 million. The most important reason that we were unable to realise the original plan is the shortage of technical personnel. As a result, we were able to realise less maintenance and replacement work. 

We presented the draft version of our investment plan for 2024 in November 2023. In the coming three years, we plan to invest € 3 billion in the expansion of our grids and about € 1.5 billion in maintenance and management of the existing infrastructure. The plan shows where we will be carrying out work in the coming ten years. We gathered the input for this plan from stakeholders, such as provinces, municipalities, and market parties. This is the first time that societal prioritised projects were included that provinces provided as input (via the pMIEKs). The plan also clearly shows that there is a considerable 'feasibility gap’ up to and including 2026. This is the difference between the market demand and our execution capacity.

Production caravans

We are scaling up considerably and are building as much new infrastructure as possible. But more is required. We have to accelerate the execution. This is only possible by working in a different way together with grid operators, contractors, commissioners, and governments. In the Nationale Uitvoeringsagenda [National Execution Agenda], which we published together with other grid operators in November 2023, we explain how we aim to realise this acceleration up to 2035-2040.

In the coming years, we will expand all 125 existing high-voltage stations and we will build dozens of additional high-voltage stations. We will also install thousands of new transformers in residential districts, we will upgrade thousands of existing transformers, and we will lay in total 16,000 kilometres of the highest capacity cable. For this, one out of three streets will have to be dug up in the coming ten years.

We will do this work district for district with “production caravans”. In production caravans, contractors carry out the engineering, preparation, and execution work independently. We started working according to this method in a district in Sappemeer in July 2023 and then we started in other locations.

The preconditions must be right to be able to work satisfactorily with a production caravan. For example, local residents should be involved in the planned reconstruction in advance. We also plan to work together more closely with partners for the training of technical personnel. Sufficient designated land for all of the infrastructure must be available on time at an acceptable land price in the areas where we are going to carry out work. Agreements have to be made about cable lines, spatial integration, and communication with the surrounding area. It is also important that permits and traffic plans are in place. In this manner, the production caravan can start quickly and continue to work at a high pace, without interruptions.

A new department within Enexis is responsible for the expansion of the number of high- and mid-voltage stations. In order to accelerate the building of these stations, we aim for standardisation and prefab construction. When making the plans, we also look at where there is physical space for energy infrastructure and how we can integrate infrastructure in the surrounding area.

Attention for the surrounding area and local residents

A lot of land and space are necessary to realise all the expansions. Electricity stations are becoming bigger and bigger and the number of stations will increase strongly in the coming years. New low-voltage stations will be built in residential areas. This is a challenge, in particular, in densely built-up urban areas. Clear communication and good local area management are crucial for the execution of our projects and to accelerate permit procedures. We want to listen carefully to local residents and inform them about the inconvenience that they can expect during the work on our infrastructure. This is why we hold meetings with residents and consultations with municipalities. We have also set up and scaled up a special department Ruimte & Recht to ensure that permits and land are acquired timely. 

Energy supply is reliable

The shop will remain open as usual during renovation. We make sure that the reliability and safety of our grid - with more than two million customers - remain high. The figures show that we are succeeding in doing this: on average, our customers were without electricity for 20.0 minutes in 2023 (2022: 14 minutes). With this result, we have scored better than the national average already for a number of years. This is something that we are proud of. The high reliability of our grids is due to the huge investments in our grids and the use of innovative systems, such as Distribution Automation Light (DALI). This system quickly localises where there is an outage. On the other hand, the increase shows that we are reaching the limits of our grid, as a result of which the number of outages is increasing.  

The gas supply was interrupted for 137 seconds in 2023 (2022: 109 seconds). The outage time for gas was higher than a year earlier due to four longer outages. This concerned three large outages in Limburg and one in Eindhoven, which together had more impact on the annual outage time than the total of all other outages in 2023 combined. Outages in the main line have an impact on a large number of users and a longer reparation time. 

• 1Nestor electricity registration system.

Higher percentage transmission indications issued

We were able to issue a transmission indication for 93% of the requests in 2023 (2022: 79%). A transmission indication indicates that at the time that a request is submitted by a customer there is still capacity available on the electricity grid. With this indication, businesses that want to generate renewable energy and/or are working on reducing CO₂ emissions, can apply for an SDE++ subsidy. We received in total 1,000 requests. This is 40% less than in 2022; however, the total requested capacity was more than 40% higher. This means that the scale of the requested projects is increasing.

We were also able to issue a transmission indication in areas where there is grid congestion (see congestion map), because we have taken future investments into account in the upgrading of the grid when issuing transmission indications. A transmission indication is not a guarantee for the available capacity. The available capacity is only verified when we actually start processing a request.

New inventory strategy

We are carrying out more and more work for the energy transition, which requires a lot of material, for example, millions of metres of cable. We are building up large inventories to accelerate the work on our grids. So that we are better able to deal with shortages. Production problems at suppliers will have less of an impact on us and we will be able to deliver materials faster for the expansion of our grids.

This is also the case for reels. We had around 2,200 reels in stock in 2023, at the end of 2023 we had 4,000 reels and in 2026 we want to increase this number to 12,000 reels. We cannot store such large quantities of reels in our northern logistic operational centre in Hoogeveen. After a European tender, we selected Oegema Logistics+ as our logistic service provider. To help us increase our inventory capacity, this company invested significantly in its own premises. In a short period of time, two warehouse facilities of 130 metres were built. A new paved area was also installed. In this manner, we are expanding our storage capacity and we can deliver reels faster than ever in our whole service area.