Netcongestie: growing a business within a grid connection you cannot enlarge

The numbers

• Waiting lists at the end of June 2026: 15,498 offtake requests (9,986 MW) and 8,558 feed-in requests (5,693 MW) at the regional grid operators, both up in MW since the end of 2025; TenneT's list comes on top (Solar Magazine, 6 Oct 2026).
• Energy Storage NL's 2025 market study counted more than 20,000 companies on a waiting list in 2024 and 312 flexible contracts signed that year (ESNL / Ecorys).
• The same study counted about 300 MWh of rental and mobile batteries in use (1,015 systems), often bridging the wait for a connection, and a C&I battery base of 0.19 GWh at the end of 2024 (ESNL / Ecorys).
• Liander's tariff sheet states that an increase in contracted capacity cannot be granted where the grid lacks capacity (Liander 2026).
• SolarPower Europe expects Dutch C&I storage to grow 80–90% a year until 2028 (SolarPower Europe 2025) ; in Zorowatt's market research that growth comes from congestion and peak charges, not subsidies.

Two kinds of congestion

• Offtake: the site cannot draw more. New EV chargers, a heat pump or a production line would push it over its contracted or physical capacity.
• Feed-in: the site cannot export more. New or larger solar has to be capped or curtailed, or stored on site. See Solar plus battery: self-consumption and curtailment.

The options while you wait

1. Wait for the upgrade. The research found no general waiting time; one vendor case avoided a new substation that would have taken about two years (Tesvolt, Oomen Warehousing).
2. Shift or cap the load: slower or scheduled EV charging, moving flexible processes out of the peak hours, an energy management system that enforces the limit.
3. A flexible contract with the grid operator, where one is offered: 312 were signed in 2024. Their terms were not part of Zorowatt's research.
4. A rental battery to bridge a known waiting period, like the 300 MWh already in use.
5. An owned battery that holds the limit for the long term, often with peak shaving, solar storage or arbitrage on top.

These combine: load shifting reduces the energy the battery has to cover, and a smaller battery may then be enough.

Sites that did it

• De Walvis office, Amsterdam: a 320 kWh battery because the 137 kW connection could not carry peaks of about 200 kW, installed to avoid disconnection (Solar Magazine, 27 Apr 2024).
• Albert Heijn distribution centre, Zaandam: more than 1.8 MWh / 800 kW for 70 electric trucks after the contracted capacity was reached (vendor: Intercel).
• Van Ommen, Beekbergen: a battery and energy management let a metalworking firm add a production hall on a full connection; the vendor's case cites about 12,000 large Dutch connections waiting for expansion (Hollander Techniek).
• Welkoop distribution centre, Apeldoorn: a 300 kW / 699 kWh battery with solar, for grid congestion and EV charging (Solar Magazine).

What the study must show

• The future load: today's 15-minute profile plus every planned load in the hours it will run.
• The quarter-hours above the limit, and the kWh above it per day, through the whole year.
• Whether there is room under the limit to recharge before the next excess — if not, no battery size works and the study should say so.
• The smallest battery that holds the limit with zero breaches, and its cost per kW of growth enabled, next to the cost and time of the alternatives.
• Bill savings separately, as a bonus: on Dutch tariffs they are modest.

How to size it step by step is in Sizing for a connection limit. Illustrative values from Zorowatt's scenario notes: €2,000 of battery per kW of extra cold-store capacity, and €12,000 per electric truck at a depot.

The contract and 2028

• Lowering the contracted capacity with a battery only pays if the battery holds it all year: if a lowered contract is exceeded within 12 months, Liander raises it retroactively to the date of the reduction (Liander 2026).
• The ACM's draft time-weighted kWmax from 2028 changes the price of a kW by hour, not the physical limit of the connection (ACM draft). See ACM 2028: the time-weighted kWmax.

Run the site in the Workspace in connection-limit mode — the default for Dutch sites — after checking the data with the free meter data checker.

Related guides

• Sizing for a connection limit
• ACM 2028: the time-weighted kWmax
• Dutch large-connection tariffs: kW contract, kWmax and kWh

Sources

• Solar Magazine, grid waiting lists, 6 Oct 2026
• Energy Storage NL & Ecorys, Marktonderzoek Energieopslag 2025
• Liander, tariffs for connection and transport, large consumers 2026
• SolarPower Europe, European Market Outlook for Battery Storage 2025–2029
• Tesvolt, Oomen Warehousing case (vendor)
• Solar Magazine, De Walvis office, 27 Apr 2024
• Intercel, Albert Heijn Zaandam (vendor)
• Hollander Techniek, Van Ommen (vendor)
• Solar Magazine, Welkoop distribution centre
• ACM, draft code decision on time-dependent tariffs, 8 Oct 2026

Last checked: 2026-10-30. Every figure in this guide comes from the source linked next to it, with the retrieval date Zorowatt's research recorded (28–30 October 2026), or from arithmetic shown step by step.