Congestion management studies yield 880MW for Dutch grid infeed

Dutch TSO TenneT has published the results of six congestion management surveys for infeed in large parts of the Netherlands, freeing up 880MW in grid capacity.

The studies were all conducted under the latest rules of the Authority Consumer & Market (ACM), which sees energy producers required by the grid operator to offer flexibility from 1MW, which has led to additional capacity to connect parties on the waiting list and enable the growing number of solar panels on homes.

According to TenneT in a release, this new approach will free up 880MW of capacity, equivalent to the energy output of up to 2,500 football pitches full of solar panels.

The additional potential capacity will allow a large part of TenneT’s waiting list to be connected in a number of regions as soon as existing solar and wind farms start to offer this flexibility.

Unfortunately, adds the TSO, not everyone in all regions can be connected yet. This is partly due to current users feeding back more electricity, thereby demanding more capacity from the grid.

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Insights by area

In Noordoostpolder, TenneT’s waiting list of 118MW can be connected and, thanks to congestion management, additional space of up to 175MW will be created for new parties.

In Flevopolder, Gelderland and Utrecht, grid congestion was found to be caused by the large number of commercial solar farms and the growth of consumer solar panels. 276MW of potential capacity has been identified through the use of congestion management, allowing part of TenneT’s total waiting list of 1,473MW to be connected.

In Groningen, Drenthe and Overijssel, grid congestion is primarily caused by the large number of solar panels on businesses and the amount of solar power generated by consumers. The production of electricity from renewable sources was found to far exceed the local demand for electricity, resulting in a heavy load on the high-voltage grid to transport this generated electricity out of the region. 10MW of space has been found to facilitate from the waiting list.

In Friesland, the entire 436MW waiting list can be facilitated thanks to congestion management. Customers with a connection greater than 20MW will eventually be required to participate in mandatory congestion management for feed-in. As soon as this becomes an issue, they will be approached by the grid operator.

In North Brabant, total required transmission capacity has increased from 2,057MW in 2022 to 3,376MW in 2024. No additional capacity can be released through congestion management in the next period.

In Limburg, 40MW of potential space has been found to facilitate from the waiting list, although no parties on the waiting list can be connected.

The congestion studies come as the Dutch grid continues to see bottlenecks from oversupply.

The grid operators continue to expand, while at the same time have stated their intent to also look into more flexible means of managing congestion.

The challenges around Dutch grid congestion will be covered in one of the key sessions during Enlit Europe next week in Milan, from 22 to 24 October. Register below: