760 companies and 500 battery projects are waiting for grid capacity in Flanders

What happened

Around 760 companies are on the waiting list for a grid connection in Flanders, and roughly 500 battery projects are waiting for approval. The Flemish regulator VNR relaxed the rules for Fall Back Flex, a flexible connection product from Fluvius, so it can now be offered to many queued applications even without a one-to-one link to a planned grid investment. Source: Elia newsroom, 23 April 2026 (elia.be); PAL, 28 April 2026 (pal.be).

Our take

Flexible connections are quietly becoming the standard way to connect in congested regions. For battery developers this is actually an opportunity: a battery is the one asset class that can offer flexibility without hurting its business model, because shifting charge and discharge times is what batteries do. Projects that accept flexible terms can connect years earlier than projects holding out for firm capacity.

What it means for site selection

The substation you choose determines whether a flexible connection is even on offer, and how much capacity Elia can give you. Elia's own scheduling list shows how fast the fleet is growing: 828 MW of batteries were scheduled by October 2026, up from 419 MW a year earlier, with another 1,720 MW under construction. Choosing a substation with fewer competing batteries nearby matters more every quarter.

What to do with this

Compare substations on existing and planned batteries, not just voltage. Gridscouter's Belgium map shows planned BESS projects per substation and links to Elia's official capacity data. Every Gridscouter plan starts with 14 days of full access for €0 today. Cancel any time before the trial ends and you pay nothing.

Gridscouter scores are estimates from open map data, not grid operator capacity figures. Always confirm connection capacity with the grid operator.