Business Daily – What’s Gone Wrong with the Dutch Power Supply?

Host: John Laurenson (BBC World Service)
Date: November 10, 2025

Overview

This episode explores a major and urgent issue in the Netherlands: the national electricity grid is in crisis. Rapid electrification, green energy adoption, and surging demand have created what industry experts call "grid congestion"—a situation where the network can't accommodate all the new sources and uses of power. John Laurenson travels through the Netherlands speaking to grid operators, business leaders, energy experts, and government officials to unpack how one of the world’s most advanced economies ended up with a power bottleneck, the consequences for businesses and the green transition, and whether the crisis could have been avoided.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Dutch "Grid Crisis": Rapid Change, Slow Infrastructure

• Grid Overload: The Dutch electricity grid can’t keep pace with the country's aggressive transition to renewable energy and widespread electrification.

  • "They have invested a lot in solar panels, in batteries and in EVs, and they cannot connect those devices anymore to the grid. New companies cannot connect to the grid, so they really have a grid crisis."
    — Damien Ernst, professor of electrical engineering, University of Liège [01:28]

• Waiting Lists for Power:

  • "We have about 12,000 organizations... who want to take off and consume electricity. And we need to put people to the waiting list because we cannot grant them the capacity that they requested."
    — Eugene Byings, grid congestion manager, TenneT [01:41]

• Dutch Electrification by the Numbers:

  • The Netherlands leads Europe in solar panels per capita (>1/3 homes).
  • Most EV charging points per capita.
  • Lidl’s Amsterdam distribution center: Goal to replace its 30-truck fleet with all-electric vehicles, but hitting barriers due to grid constraints. [02:00–02:55]

Why the Grid Can't Keep Up

• Grid Congestion Explained:

  • "Grid congestion is like a traffic jam on the power grid."
    — Kees Jan Rameau, CEO, Eneco [03:22]
  • Historical grid: Designed for centralized gas or coal power plants, not today's distributed renewables.
  • Now: "A lot of power also being injected into the grid in the outskirts... where there's only relatively small power lines."

• What Happens When the Grid Overloads?

  • Excess supply: Forced to "curtail" wind and solar farms—cutting off renewable generation to keep the network stable.
  • "Every second really you have to put exactly the same amount of power onto the grid as that is taken off. So it has to be in balance every second."
    — Kees Jan Rameau [04:31]

• Intermittency of Renewables:

  • Big swings between supply and demand due to weather.
  • "In the Netherlands, they have around 27 gigawatts of PV panels installed... much, much more than what the Netherlands is consuming during a sunny day."
    — Damien Ernst [05:24]

• The Grid Hasn't Been Upgraded Fast Enough:

  • "They are installed at a rate which is much, much too high for the grid to be able to accommodate those new PV panels. They have a grid crisis. They haven't invested enough... and so they are facing bottlenecks everywhere."
    — Damien Ernst [06:01–06:46]

Coping Strategies and Still-Mounting Problems

• Dutch Grid Management:

  • Eneco’s "virtual power plant" in Rotterdam uses AI to balance supply and demand, sometimes forcibly shutting off wind or solar to avoid overloads. [06:46–07:10]
  • "Peak shaving": Companies and individuals get special rate contracts in exchange for letting suppliers temporarily cut or reduce their power use during grid strain (commonly between 4–9 pm). [07:40–08:25]

• Limits on New Connections:

  • Requests for heat pumps, EV charging at homes, new company facilities—all increasingly denied due to lack of grid capacity.
  • Even new housing construction is slowing down:
    • "There's just no capacity to connect those new neighborhoods to the grid."
      — Kees Jan Rameau [08:29]

• Staggering Wait Times:

  • "You can't get hooked up to the grid for three, five, 10 years."
    — John Laurenson [09:25]
  • Businesses wanting to feed in renewable electricity also face long waits.

The Human and Economic Impact

• Impacts on Businesses and Industries:

  • "Grid congestion is putting the future of the Dutch chemical industry at risk... If you don't have electricity... companies cannot invest."
    — Ninka Homan, President, Dutch Chemical Association [12:19]
  • High grid connection costs threaten competitiveness, pushing investment and jobs abroad.
  • These delays and costs "can have a chain reaction" in interconnected industries. [13:07–13:55]

• Costs:

  • "They're projecting to invest no less than about 200 billion euros until 2040 to reinforce the power grid, which is really an astonishing amount."
    — Kees Jan Rameau [14:05]
  • The "cost of not investing" estimated as €12–47 billion per year in lost growth, jobs, and investment (Boston Consulting Group study) [15:03]
  • Actual grid expansion is extremely slow: 10–16 years from start to operation, mostly due to permitting and land rights delays.
    • "Every additional request is coming to the waiting list."
      — Eugene Byings [15:43]

Could It Have Been Avoided?

• Underestimated Consequences:

  • "In hindsight, we were very much focusing on increasing the renewable power generation side, but we kind of underestimated the impact it would have on the power grid."
    — Kees Jan Rameau [14:05]
  • Grid operator TenneT: Legally not allowed to build ahead of need—could only invest when contractual demand was visible.
  • The energy transition is advancing faster than grid expansion, a regulatory and political miscalculation.
    • "Our suggestions to already invest ahead in the system wasn't allowed according to the legislation in the Netherlands."
      — Eugene Byings [16:41]

• Political and Policy Factors:

  • Academic expert: "Policymakers... can do a good slideshow, but they don't know anything about engineering."
    — Damien Ernst [17:24 paraphrase]
  • Dutch Ministry (statement): "The speed at which our electricity consumption has grown might have been collectively underestimated... It is also hard to predict where the growth will occur first."
    — Dutch Ministry for Climate Policy & Green Growth [18:07]

Government Response and Future Outlook

• National Grid Congestion Action Plan:

  • Focused on faster permitting, improved grid utilization, and €230 million investment—"almost exactly 1,000 times less than the cost estimate for making the grid fit for purpose." [18:27]

• Policy Shifts:

  • Reduction of financial incentives for households to feed solar power into the grid; in some cases, households may have to pay to supply surplus electricity. [19:10–19:40]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Kees Jan Rameau on grid design:

  • "Originally our power grid was designed in the days when we had just a few very large power plants... Now... there's a lot of power also being injected into the grid in the outskirts." [03:22]

• Damien Ernst on solar capacity:

  • "27 gigawatts of PV panels... it corresponds to 27 standard nuclear reactors." [05:24]

• Ninka Homan on chemical industry risks:

  • "The grid connection being not only a technical issue, it's a competitiveness issue... the risk that Dutch industry will shut down, get less, and in other countries it will be easier to invest." [13:07]

• John Laurenson frames the dilemma:

  • "It's not even a question of one or the other, it's both. This is going to take a fix that the Dutch are going to have to pay to overhaul the grid, and for not having done it already." [15:03]

• Eugene Byings on barriers to faster action:

  • "About 10 years ago, our planning and our suggestions to already invest ahead... wasn't allowed according to legislation." [16:41]

Key Timestamps

• [01:28] Damien Ernst explains the crisis from overbuilding renewables vs. grid capacity
• [03:22] Kees Jan Rameau defines grid congestion and explains structural causes
• [04:31] Consequences of imbalance: why supply and demand must match every second
• [05:24] Scale of Dutch solar expansion compared to nuclear power
• [08:29] Impact on residential and business connections; housing stalled by lack of capacity
• [09:25] John Laurenson summarizes years-long waits for new grid connections
• [12:19] Ninka Homan says grid limits threaten the chemical industry and future investment
• [14:05] Rameau and Laurenson discuss costs and historical underestimation
• [15:43] Byings on the slow pace and bureaucratic hurdles of grid expansion
• [17:24] Critique of policymakers’ technical knowledge (Damien Ernst paraphrased)
• [18:07] Government statement on lessons learned and plan to improve
• [18:27] Ministry’s current policy response and action plan

Takeaways

The Dutch electricity grid crisis is a stark warning for all countries embarking on a rapid green transition. Heavy investment in renewables and electrification, without equally aggressive grid modernization, has led to congestion, long delays, rising business costs, and threats to industrial competitiveness. Fixing the grid will be extraordinarily expensive and slow, with planning and regulatory barriers still standing in the way. The story is not unique to the Netherlands—similar risks lurk for other advanced economies pushing to decarbonize.