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Netherlands looks ahead to an electrified future
6/10/2026
7 min read
Feature
Recent developments in the small northern European country show the opportunities provided by electrification, and lay out the costs as well. New Energy World Senior Editor Will Dalrymple MEI reports.
In September, the Netherlands published an updated national energy system plan that sees phased expansion of the grid towards an increase in electricity and renewable heat in final energy consumption for the built environment, road transport, industry and agriculture from 26% to approximately 60–70%. The country’s electricity sector is growing quickly, as numerous projects demonstrate.
‘The Netherlands is fast developing into a more attractive jurisdiction for BESS [battery energy system storage] projects,’ write Marieke Driessen, Partner, and Ellen Vintges, Senior Associate at international law firm Stibbe. ‘Whereas other countries took an early lead in BESS project development, the Dutch market was behind the curve due to limitations in supporting legal infrastructure for BESS development, grid capacity and connection issues, high grid fees and limited bankability of the business case. However, this has changed as a result of various initiatives yielding results starting from 2025.’
They report that within the state budget for 2027, the Dutch government announced further support for energy storage in the form of enhanced tax advantages for companies investing in innovative energy storage systems. From 2027, the Netherlands must establish goals for non-fossil flexibility to stabilise the electricity grid pursuant to the EU Electricity Regulation, on the basis of assessments determining how much clean flexibility electricity systems require and identifying existing barriers.
A step in that direction came in 2025, with a 7.5MW/11MWh BESS at RWE’s Moerdijk power plant. What made it unique at the time of installation in Central Europe was highly responsive control technology and inverters with grid-forming functionality that enable the system to supply or absorb power within milliseconds, helping to stabilise the power grid (and provide inertia), says RWE.
It explains that the more electricity comes from renewable, fluctuating energy sources, the more difficult it becomes to keep the power grid stable. Inertia plays a crucial role here as it is the fastest available balancing energy in the power grid. Until now, inertia has mainly been provided by the rotating masses of turbines, eg in coal-fired power plants.
Nikolaus Valerius, CEO RWE Generation SE, says: ‘Our newest plant in Moerdijk shows that ultra-fast battery energy storage systems can deliver the grid-serving inertia once solely provided by conventional power plants. With the phase-out of fossil fuel-fired large power plants, more and more such systems are needed to stabilise the grid.’
The Moerdijk BESS was developed and constructed as part of OranjeWind, a joint offshore wind project off the Dutch coast being developed by RWE and its partner TotalEnergies. In using advanced lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) technology, combined with super-fast inverters, the plant is a blueprint for RWE’s plans to significantly expand its BESS capacities worldwide.
Parallel pilot project
Parallel to commercial operation, the plant in Moerdijk is undergoing a two-year pilot phase with the aim of developing standards for future BESS capable of providing inertia. RWE will use the experience gained from this together with transmission system operator TenneT to develop the technical requirements and grid compliance procedures for the grid-forming properties of the plant.
In September 2026, RWE took a final investment decision to build a 400MW/1,100MWh BESS at the site. It will consist of 208 containers with lithium-ion batteries and can deliver its full output for almost three hours. Construction is scheduled to start in due course, with commissioning planned for 2Q2028. The new battery system will also be equipped to provide advanced grid services such as instantaneous reserve (inertia).
Low-carbon sector coupling
Moving north to a suburb of Amsterdam, a different kind of system is also providing a low-carbon resource, but as heat, not power. A new Vattenfall 150MW electric boiler plant has been using renewable electricity to provide district heating for Amsterdam and Almere, amounting to 15% of the annual heat demand in the connected district heating networks.
The project is said to be an example of sector coupling, which connects different parts of the energy system: renewable electricity is converted into heat for the district heating network, helping ensure that available renewable electricity is used as efficiently as possible.
‘Our goal is to make all our district heating networks fossil-free,’ says Bart Dehue, Manager System Strategy and Development at Vattenfall. ‘To achieve that, we are developing new fossil-free heat sources that help make the energy system more flexible.’
When large amounts of renewable electricity are available and there is sufficient capacity on the electricity grid, the e-boiler converts that electricity into heat for homes. The energy can either be supplied directly to the district heating network or can be stored in the thermal energy storage facility located at the Diemen site, according to Vattenfall.
The plant consists of three 7m-high boilers each measuring 36m3. In operation, water accounts for 14m3 of the volume, with the remaining 18m3 filled with nitrogen. Water circulates in a closed loop, and heat is transferred to the district heating network through a heat exchanger.
As wind and solar generation continue to grow, periods of abundant renewable generation are becoming increasingly common. During such periods, electricity prices are often low because supply is abundant. In 2025, for example, the Netherlands recorded 584 hours of negative prices, 28% more than in 2024, according to the annual report from TSO TenneT published in May.
Dehue says that the plant is like a gas peaker; it can respond quickly to advantageous economic circumstances. He adds: ‘On days when it is very windy and/or sunny, the e-boiler, together with the heat storage facility, acts like a giant battery for renewable heat.’
Dutch national energy system plan
The following are excerpts from the Netherlands’ national energy plan (Nationaal Plan Energiesysteem, NPE), published in Dutch in September.
Under the Energy Act, the government is required to adopt the NPE every five years. The government has opted to update the NPE in the interim because new developments in certain areas are impacting the future energy system….
In practice, the ambitions set out in the 2023 NPE have proven difficult to realise. Due to factors such as grid congestion and challenging market conditions – for instance, in offshore wind and the industrial sector – progress has been slower than originally anticipated. This trend is expected to continue in the coming years, as the challenges associated with rapid implementation will not simply disappear….
The government remains committed to an ambitious course. The importance of a resilient, sustainable, and competitive energy system has grown further in the current geopolitical context, requiring a full commitment to the energy transition: reducing dependency through more domestically produced energy and gaining greater control over energy costs. At the same time, it is important to look towards the long term. Uncertainties regarding short-term energy price fluctuations or the development of future technologies should not distract from the fact that the overall direction of the energy transition is highly robust….
The Netherlands is currently experiencing firsthand that implementing the energy transition is not without difficulties. This situation will persist throughout the transition, as the scale of the task remains exceptionally large in the coming years. For instance, the transition will require laying over 120,000km of electricity cables, installing or preparing over 1,000km of pipelines to transport renewable gases, and setting up more than 50,000 local substations. This undertaking represents both a massive investment requirement and a huge challenge in terms of securing the necessary physical space….
Grid congestion is currently delaying the desired electrification of our society. Companies and institutions want to electrify or expand but are unable to secure a grid connection. At the same time, in various areas, there is still room for additional electricity consumption on existing connections, or there are opportunities for flexible usage. The government is working with grid operators on measures to prevent uncertainty about future developments from leading to premature declarations of grid congestion. Starting this year, grid operators are developing scenarios to clarify the feasibility gap. This ensures that grid calculations consider not only the desired growth in demand but also what is practically feasible. In addition, the capacity of the electricity grid will be significantly expanded in stages leading up to 2040….
For much of society’s energy consumption – particularly among households, public institutions, and SMEs – electrification is the most suitable pathway. While electrification plays a key role in sustainability efforts across all sectors, the extent of that role varies by sector. For a large proportion of sectors involving domestic energy use (the built environment, road transport, inland shipping, regional industry, and agriculture), electrification offers the most affordable route to sustainability, alongside a significant role for renewable heat. This ensures that, in the future, the energy for these sectors can largely be produced domestically. As a result, the combined share of electricity and renewable heat in final energy consumption for these sectors rises from the current 26% to approximately 60–70% by 2040 and continues to increase towards 2050….
- Further reading: ‘Electrification and security: two big themes emerge from the latest Statistical Review of World Energy’. Leaders of the Energy Institute and partners discuss the findings of the 2026 Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy, which tallies full-year data to the end of 2025 and celebrates its 75th anniversary with an expanded editorial section. Among the headline figures, all forms of energy – coal, oil, gas, wind, solar, hydro and nuclear – grew for the second consecutive year in a row, something that has not happened for at least 20 years.
- ‘Global coalition launches ‘Electrify Now’ initiative’. Backed by the European Commission, the UN, the COP presidencies, the International Energy Agency, the International Renewable Energy Agency and industry leaders, the Electrify Now campaign sets out a target to increase the share of electricity in global energy demand from around 21% today to 35% by 2035 – requiring progress at roughly four times the current pace.
