Despite large investments, the power grid in The Hague will stay overloaded for a while yet, because fixing it means heavy work in the city itself.
Many streets will have to be dug open and hundreds of transformer boxes added to meet demand for electricity.
Alderman Isabelle Broeders (VVD), who is responsible for grid congestion, fears a third of the city will have to be opened up over the next ten years.
Waiting lists for connections
Grid congestion has already been declared for the city centre and Scheveningen, which means new businesses and homes cannot simply get a connection.
Even so, housing projects and new schools may be told they cannot be connected yet, and Broeders says it is up to operator Stedin to reinforce the grid.
She says safety takes priority, then measures that ease congestion such as batteries storing power for peak moments, with housing and education after that.
In the meantime she looks to creative fixes such as the separate grid linking beach pavilions, which runs independently of the main network.
The 500 extra transformer boxes also have to fit into the Netherlands’ most densely populated city, where space above and below ground is full.
