By bizn_fun 
Tennet, the government-owned agency that runs the Netherlands’ national grid, says that 8,000 companies are currently waiting to be able to feed in electricity, while 12,000 others are waiting for permission to use more power.
Some sectors of the Dutch economy are warning that it is hampering their growth. “Grid congestion is putting the future of the Dutch chemical industry at risk… while in other countries it will be easier to invest,” says the President of the Dutch Chemical Association Nienke Homan.
So, was all this avoidable? “In hindsight I think almost every problem is avoidable,” says Mr Kees-Jan Rameau.
He adds that following the 2015 Paris Agreement on trying to tackle climate change, “we were very much focussing on increasing the renewable power generation side. But we kind of underestimated the impact it would have on the power grid.”
Tennet is now planning to spend €200bn ($235bn; £174bn) on reinforcing the grid, including laying some 100,000km (62,000 miles) of new cables between now and 2050.
That’s a huge amount of money, but there is also a big cost to not spending it. Grid congestion is costing the Dutch economy up to €35bn a year, according to a 2024 report , externalfrom management consultancy group Boston Consulting Group.
Eugene Beijings, who is in charge of grid congestion with Tennet, says that patience is sadly required. “To strengthen and reinforce the grid, we need to double, triple, sometimes increase tenfold the capacity of the existing grid.
“And it’s taking on average about 10 years to do a project like that before it goes live, of which the first eight are legislation and getting the rights to put cables in the ground with all property owners. And only the last two years are the construction period.
“And meanwhile the energy transition is going that fast that we cannot cope with it, with the existing grid. So every additional request [to connect] is adding to the waiting list.”