More effective grid use (flexibilisation)

To efficiently match energy consumption and demand within an affordable energy system, customers must adapt their energy usage. This joint adjustment of supply and demand is referred to as ‘flexibilisation’ of the energy system. Alliander is the main party driving this development forward in the Netherlands.

Our ambition is to provide all customers with a suitable solution in the coming years. Flexibilisation and better utilisation of the grid are crucial steps for achieving this. We see it as our task to offer concrete products for this purpose. In 2024, we flexibly contracted 98 MW of capacity with customers. In addition, 269 MW of flexible capacity was made available by (existing) customers. We freed up 213 MW of capacity through grid upgrades and the introduction of higher load limits for assets, and used this capacity to connect customers.

Congestion management

The purpose of congestion management is to ensure that the grid is not overloaded. This means that businesses are asked to reduce their electricity usage at busy times. Unfortunately, not enough companies have volunteered to participate in the scheme to date. So Liander is now moving to the next step in some cases: mandatory participation in congestion management. This is necessary to ensure that the power grid remains reliable and to prevent overloading.  

New products for congestion management

At the end of 2024, we presented the final versions of the capacity-limiting contracts based on time windows. The capacity-limiting contract with fixed time windows (CBC-T) is a congestion management product where the customer contractually agrees to a lower transmission capacity within certain time windows. A further product, the capacity-limiting contract on an on-call basis (CBC-A), was ready for application in the market at the end of 2024. Under the CBC-A agreement with a business customer, Liander is entitled to ‘call’ a capacity limitation one day in advance. A central platform, GOPACS, has been set up to ensure that these congestion management calls are coordinated with the market in a standardised manner. This platform is used by all the network operators in the Netherlands. The platform ensures that the applied flexibility does not create new congestion or imbalance problems in our energy system. In addition, we actively worked on the development of capacity-limiting contracts and mandatory participation for groups of customers rather than just individual parties.

New tariff models

Currently, small consumers (households) pay a fixed amount per year in network charges. So there is no impact if they use a lot of energy or very little energy during peak or off-peak hours in the network. The costs are shared equally among all users. There is no reward for using less grid capacity during peak hours or more during off-peak hours. Price incentives can ensure better utilisation of electricity grid capacity, thereby reducing congestion and the need to invest in capacity for peak usage, and thus slowing the increase in network tariffs. 

A study carried out by Netbeheer Nederland in 2024 shows that an alternative net tariff system for households, in which the net tariff is calculated based on time and volume, could help distribute more energy through the same electricity grid. This will reduce the grid congestion issue and also to some extent eliminate the need for extensions of the network in and to residential areas. Furthermore, this alternative tariff system results in a new distribution of costs among users that more accurately reflects differences in their use of the electricity grid. Those who heavily load the grid will pay more, but they also have the flexibility to shift this load to off-peak hours, meaning they can save significantly on their costs and help with preventing congestion. A significant majority (66%) of the households displaying grid-friendly behaviour are expected to pay less compared to their fixed costs if the current tariff system is continued.

Netbeheer Nederland prepared a vision document last year for the tariff system for business consumption. The current tariff structure no longer fits well with the changing energy system, the price incentives for system efficiency and better use of infrastructure are insufficient, and accurate cost reflection is lacking. Under the proposed new system, flexibility will be rewarded more, and those who generate power will contribute to grid investments. Under the new tariff system, individual customers with flexible assets and alternative transmission rights can decide how much flexibility they can optimally use to reduce their network costs, taking into account the baseline capacity they need at all times for their operations. This also supports the business case for investments companies are making to become more responsive to energy prices and helps them optimise overall energy costs in alignment with the needs of their business processes. 

Increasing the load on grids

Over the past year, Alliander has conducted chain studies to determine the level to which our assets can be loaded beyond their usual standard limit. Heavier loading affects component ageing and failure susceptibility, but also provides additional capacity. We believe that the current congestion situation calls for a new balance between these considerations. As a result of the decision to increase the permissible load on assets, we have created 9% more capacity across the grid on average, with outliers of up to 30%. At present, this has no impact on the service life of our assets. We will continue this optimisation programme next year as well, to allow cyclical heavier loading of components. 

Local exchange of energy and grid capacity is an essential part of the energy system of the future.

Local balancing of supply and demand

In our role as a network operator, Alliander sees local exchange of energy and grid capacity as an essential part of the energy system of the future. We are supporting these innovative developments and working to make our data and market facilitation systems suitable for this. We aim to establish partnerships with other parties that deploy solutions and set up combinations such as ENTRNCE, which is a local market platform. We are working on projects that use group contracts, where grid users share transmission capacity among themselves to better balance supply and demand locally.

Group transmission agreement for energy hubs

At business parks, there are often opportunities for businesses to work together to solve capacity shortages, in addition to individual solutions. For example, by jointly investing in batteries, solar panels and generators. When we succeed in achieving a better balance between local energy supply and demand, business developments can continue despite congestion. With this in mind, the sector submitted the code proposal for the group transmission agreement to the ACM in October 2024. This agreement makes it possible for companies to jointly coordinate energy generation and use among themselves. In 2025, the first business parks will start using this new product and we will facilitate 25 energy hubs with it. 

Customers are interested in the idea of organising themselves as groups in ‘energy hubs’ or energy communities. By coordinating generation and demand locally, less grid capacity is required and companies, business parks and industrial estates can expand or become more sustainable.

In 2024, we launched projects to set up new energy hubs for companies and business parks in Tholen, Hapert and Almelo. In addition, Firan developed an assessment framework to support legally compliant organisation of local energy networks in the Apeldoorn, Deventer and Zutphen region. Furthermore, the EIGEN consortium (energy hubs for integrating large-scale renewable energy), whose participants include Firan and ENTRNCE, launched an Energy Hub Platform and an Energy Hub Control Box. The applications control analysis, monitoring and regulation of the local energy flows in an energy hub.