TenneT's departing CEO expects ten more years of grid queues — what that means for developers
TenneT's outgoing CEO says Dutch grid waiting lists will be around for about another decade. Our take: location choice is now the main project risk.
What happened
In a farewell interview, outgoing TenneT CEO Manon van Beek said she expects waiting lists for grid connections to persist for roughly another ten years, even though they are slowly shrinking. TenneT plans around 1,000 projects over the next fifteen years and aims to at least double the network, and it recently announced it will uprate more than 800 km of existing high-voltage lines to carry up to 30% more power. Source: WNL interview with Manon van Beek, 16 October 2026 (wnl.tv).
Our take
A decade of queues means the queue itself becomes the market. The developers who win are not the ones with the best technology, but the ones who pick locations where capacity still exists — or where it comes back first. TenneT's own capacity map turned parts of Groningen and Drenthe from red to yellow in October 2026 because consumption forecasts were sharpened, which shows how quickly local situations can change.
Check this on the Netherlands map
Substations scored for BESS, solar, wind and data centers, plus land positions and instant site checks.
What to do with this
Treat grid capacity as a per-substation question, not a national one. Rank substations, check what is already planned nearby, and watch the official capacity maps for status changes. Gridscouter's Netherlands map ranks every substation and links to the official congestion maps, and our /netcongestie pages track the situation per province. 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.