Solving grid congestion: 7 options for your business

On the waiting list for a bigger grid connection? Seven options for a business facing grid congestion, and a worked example: a 40 kW expansion that goes over the limit in only 1.1% of the year.

What grid congestion is

Congestion is another word for a traffic jam. With grid congestion the cables are too busy at certain moments: no more power can flow through part of the grid than already does. It can happen in two directions: on import, when too much power is demanded at once in an area, and on feed-in, when too much is fed back at once.

A business in such an area that applies for more transport capacity ends up on a waiting list. On 30 June 2026 the Dutch regional grid operators had 15,498 requests for more import capacity on their lists, nearly 10,000 MW together, and 8,558 for feed-in. According to the grid operators, the wait can run to several years¹. Whether your area is full is shown on the capacity map of Netbeheer Nederland (in Dutch), the association of Dutch grid operators.

The grid is being expanded, but in many regions the number of applications grows faster. That is not the fault of the business that wants to grow, nor of the grid operator. The grid was built for a time when businesses burned gas, filled up with diesel and hardly fed anything back.

What the waiting list means for your business

A large connection has a contracted transport capacity: the most you may take from or feed into the grid in any quarter hour. On the waiting list that maximum stays where it is, and that has consequences.

• Expanding or electrifying has to fit within the current capacity. The new hall, the charge points or the heat pump add to what is already there.
• An overrun gives you no rights. Liander, one of the Dutch grid operators, treats an overrun as a request to raise the transport capacity. Outside congested areas that usually happens automatically, in a congested area it does not².
• A generous contract is not a safe buffer. In congested areas the grid operator may limit transport capacity that has not been shown to be needed, after consulting the business³.

So a business that waits for capacity cannot grow for now. The question is what does fit within the current connection, and for that you need to know how full it really is.

A connection is rarely full all year

Take the wholesaler from how many EV chargers fit on my grid connection: an office and a warehouse on one connection with 160 kW of contracted transport capacity. The highest quarter hour of 2025 is 132 kW. The business is fictional; its profile was built for that article, quarter hour by quarter hour, over all of 2025.

The business builds a second warehouse hall. Lighting, ventilation and doors need 25 kW together on working days from 6:00 to 16:00. Four electric forklifts charge during the same shift at 15 kW on average, 150 kWh per working day. Together that is 40 kW extra, and the highest quarter hour becomes 172 kW: 12 kW above the transport capacity. More capacity is not available, because the area is full.

Yet consumption only goes above 160 kW in 379 of the year's 35,040 quarter hours, 1.1% of the time. All of them fall on working days between 8:45 and 15:15, and three in four in December, January and February, when the building's existing heat pump works hardest.

The longest unbroken stretch above the limit is on Friday 10 January, from 9:30 to 14:30. Over those five hours, 25 kWh sits above 160 kW in all, and 11 kW in that day's highest quarter hour.

Measured at the peak, the expansion does not fit. Measured per quarter hour, it already fits for 98.9% of the year. Which of the seven options works depends on those 379 quarter hours: when they fall, how long they last and how many kWh sit above the limit.

“Our clients want to grow. Extra warehouses, machines, production lines. But they can't get additional capacity from the grid operator. Wattix helps us show what's still possible within their existing connection.”

Jesse Moms, Kremer Installatietechniek

Seven options for grid congestion

1. Shift consumption

Not all consumption has to happen at the time it happens now. Machines can run in another shift, vehicles can charge later and cooling can be done in advance. For consumption that can wait, shifting is the cheapest option, because nothing needs to be added.

In the example the forklifts no longer charge during the shift but from 16:00 to 2:00, with the same 150 kWh. The highest quarter hour of the year then becomes 157 kW, and not one quarter hour goes above 160 kW.

The margin is small: less than 3 kW in the busiest quarter hour of 2025, a year without a cold spell. A colder winter can still push a few quarter hours over the limit. How to plan charging within the limit when more vehicles are involved is covered in smart charging in Wattix.

2. Absorb peaks with a battery

A battery charges when there is headroom under the transport capacity and discharges as soon as consumption goes above it. Its size follows from the quarter hours above the limit: the power from the highest overrun, the storage capacity from the most kWh that build up above the limit before it can recharge.

For the example without shifting, the Wattix engine arrives at a battery of 12.2 kW and 33.3 kWh, with 85% efficiency and a minimum charge of 10%. That storage capacity does not follow from 10 January but from Wednesday 26 February, the day of the highest quarter hour: between 9:00 and 13:15 consumption goes nearly 28 kWh above 160 kW in all, with hardly any room to recharge in between. With the battery, the business does not draw more than 160 kW from the grid in a single quarter hour of 2025. How to work out such a size yourself, and why rules of thumb make it too small, is covered in sizing a battery for a business.

A battery that only absorbs peaks stands idle most of the year. In this calculation, with a fixed power price, it delivers 265 kWh a year.

3. Use your own generation smarter

With congestion on feed-in, this is the main option. A business that is not allowed to feed back solar power can use more of it itself, cap what it feeds back, or switch off when feeding back costs money. How that works out on a large connection is covered in negative power prices and solar panels.

With congestion on import, your own generation only helps if it is there at the moment of the peak. In the example, three in four of the quarter hours above the limit fall in the winter months, when solar panels generate least.

4. Congestion management

With a capacity steering contract (capaciteitssturingscontract) you agree with the grid operator that it may have you lower or raise your consumption at busy moments, in return for a fee. The steering can be on request, or always within fixed time windows such as the daily peak hours. On 30 June 2026 there were 375 of these contracts for import, 270 of them on request. Grid operators also approach businesses on the waiting list with flexible offers, such as a contract like this or an alternative transport right, and can grant part of the requests that way after all¹.

A contract like this needs consumption that you can really adjust, on request or in the agreed windows, without work coming to a halt. In the example that is the forklifts: their charging can wait a few hours, the lights in the hall cannot.

5. An alternative transport right

With an alternative transport right you do not always have the full transport capacity, and you pay a lower grid tariff⁴. There are three forms¹:

• Time-block transport right: transport within agreed time blocks outside the peak moments, for example to charge a fleet at night. The regional grid operators offer this.
• Time-duration transport right: transport in at least 85% of the hours. For the rest, the grid operator announces a day ahead whether there is capacity, and how much. Only TenneT, the national grid operator, offers this, on the high-voltage grid.
• Fully variable transport right, also called non-firm: transport in a congested area at moments when there is room. The grid operator announces a day ahead at the latest when, and how much. At most grid operators this can only be used to a limited extent so far.

Whether an alternative transport right is available differs per area. And it has to match the profile. In the example the extra capacity is needed precisely on working days during the day. A time block in the off-peak hours does not help the hall, but it does help consumption that can already move to the evening or the night. How to check a profile against a time block is explained at compare energy contracts.

6. Share capacity or a connection

With a group transport agreement (groepstransportovereenkomst), several large consumers sign one transport agreement together, while each business keeps its own connection. The ACM, the Dutch regulator, set the rules in December 2025⁵. With cable pooling, up to four nearby installations for generation, storage or consumption share one connection of at least 100 kVA⁶.

Sharing works when the businesses or installations peak at different moments. A warehouse that peaks during the day fits better next to a cold store that runs at night than next to a second warehouse.

7. Apply and wait

Waiting is an option too, and it does not rule out the others. When capacity becomes available, the grid operator allocates it according to the social prioritization framework: first parties that reduce congestion, then hospitals, housing and schools, among others¹. Businesses without social priority wait longest.

Liander releases capacity in a large part of Gelderland and the Flevopolder from 1 January 2027, and reviews it every six months. For businesses that stay on the waiting list, Liander itself points to flexible energy use and better use of the existing connection⁷. Those are the options above.

Which option fits

The answer can also be a combination: first shift what can be shifted, then absorb the rest with a smaller battery or a different contract. To choose, you need four things from a year of the connection's quarter-hour data, with the expansion added:

1. In how many quarter hours consumption goes above the transport capacity.
2. When: at which hours, on which days and in which months.
3. How long the longest stretch above it lasts, and how many kWh sit above it.
4. Which part of the consumption can wait or drop for a while.

A year is needed because the tightest days often fall in winter. From the highest peak alone you cannot see the first three.

What Wattix does here

In Wattix you set the quarter-hour data of a connection against its contracted transport capacity, add the expansion and see, quarter hour by quarter hour, where consumption goes above it. Then you calculate the options as scenarios side by side: a different consumption profile, smart charging within the limit, a battery, solar panels, or a contract with a different limit per hour and per weekday, such as a time-block transport right. The worked example was calculated with the same engine. How this works for a business facing grid congestion is covered in grid congestion.