Roel Wolters on investment

"It must be possible to speed things up"

Given increasing demand and the need to render energy supplies fully sustainable, the Netherlands requires greater transmission capacity. However, the process of obtaining the necessary permits and licences is extremely slow. Roel Wolters is TenneT's Manager of Transmission Operations. "A complete overhaul of the legislation is required to speed things up," he states.

Ideas and good intentions are one thing. To put those ideas and intentions into practice, one must often wade through a morass of legislation and practical objections, as Roel Wolters knows all too well. Although TenneT plans every investment well in advance and according to a long-term vision, it remains difficult to complete projects on schedule. Wolters considers it highly regrettable that TenneT cannot always keep up with the rapid growth in production. "The process of increasing our transmission capacity frequently lags behind that of building the planned power stations, largely due to delays in obtaining the various permits," he states.

Lessons are being learned, however. A case in point is the Randstad 380 kV connection currently under construction. "Our experience on this project can be put to good use in the forthcoming North-West 380 kV (Eemshaven-Diemen) and South-West 380 kV (Borssele-Geertruidenberg) projects. The government is also doing its best to improve procedures, and will expedite these projects by bringing them under a special national coordination scheme. This enables many of the permits required to be combined into one 'all-embracing' permit. Nevertheless, we shall still not be able to keep up with the growth in production, even with this special arrangement."

Wouters finds the Netherlands a particularly 'difficult' country when it comes to official procedures. Objections come thick and fast. "If you avoid the densely populated areas, you soon find yourself in a protected nature reserve. Moving the infrastructure underground is one option, but it is expensive and makes the grid less reliable. It is therefore not the ideal solution."

There must be fundamental changes to the permit issuance procedures if the ambitious sustainability targets are to be achieved on time. "A complete overhaul of the legislation is required to speed things up," states Wolters. "Otherwise it will be virtually impossible to complete all the large projects with long lead times, such as the offshore wind farms, on time."

TenneT is already hard at work in preparing the grid for a sustainable future but its efforts are not confined to the large projects such as connecting the wind farms to the grid. "We can also achieve a lot through much smaller investments such as a congestion management system. This helps us to balance supply and demand more effectively. It also enables us to address the trend towards decentralised energy production, such as the combined heat and power units used by horticultural businesses in the Westland region. Our ultimate aim is to develop a grid that can achieve the perfect match between supply and demand."