Tim Legerstee
Manager
Tim helps clients develop their (commercial) strategies, such as optimizing their recurring revenue model, pricing strategy, or market focus. He prefers to work for innovative, mission-driven companies that make a positive impact on the world.
Tijmen van Diepen
Manager
Tijmen is an expert in shaping and executing strategy, particularly in the energy sector. As an experienced management consultant, he brings experience in program management, strategy execution and sustainability. His approach combines both head and heart.
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The energy transition is also a spatial challenge: grid operators need a lot of additional land to expand the power grid. Acquiring that land takes a long time: it can take up to eight years before the first shovel even breaks ground. How can grid operators accelerate this process by collaborating with one another and with regional governments? nlmtd helps identify and capitalize on opportunities for improvement.
Land-use planning: it’s one of those aspects of the energy transition that you don’t tend to think about, but it’s essential for the much-needed expansion of the power grid. After all, from the countless new transformer stations and distribution substations to the extra kilometers of cables—everything requires land.
In a small country where space is scarce in many ways, this poses significant challenges: nearly every piece of land already serves a purpose and is owned by a company, a government agency, or a private individual. You can see where this is going: as a result, acquiring land takes time—a lot of time, if you’re unlucky. And that’s exactly what grid operators don’t have in their fight against rising grid congestion.
This sense of urgency is strongly felt by Daphne Verreth (Director of Energy Systems & Environment and the project’s sponsor): “We all face a major challenge in making a future-proof energy system a reality,” she explains. “This involves introducing flexibility into the system, utilizing sustainable molecules, and, of course, building and expanding our energy infrastructure. To make this possible, we want to accelerate our efforts, and this is the first step toward identifying what is feasible within the spatial planning process.”
That is why Netbeheer Nederland wanted to analyze how amending laws and policies could speed up the acquisition of land, and what the grid operators themselves can do to improve their collaboration with one another. On behalf of nlmtd, Tim Legerstee and Tijmen van Diepen were involved in the analysis, which was conducted in close collaboration with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy.
To enable the construction and expansion of our energy infrastructure, we want to accelerate the process, and this is the first step toward determining what is feasible within the spatial planning process.
Track 1: Policy and Laws
There is already a great deal of collaboration between government agencies and grid operators within the National Action Program on Grid Congestion. This initiative focused on identifying a number of measures with significant potential to accelerate progress, and there is now momentum for changes in areas such as legislation and policy.
The first track builds on a similar analysis conducted by TenneT, the operator of the national high-voltage grid. “TenneT had previously investigated which changes to laws and policies could speed up the process of acquiring land,” Tim explains. “Think of less complex permitting procedures or faster access to the Council of State in the event of disputes.”
To prevent this from simply shifting the bottleneck to the medium-voltage grid, regional grid operators must also step up their efforts. In this context, Netbeheer Nederland—the association of all grid operators—wanted to identify which of TenneT’s proposals would also be useful for the medium-voltage grid.
“In various workshops, we brought together a diverse group of experts from the grid operators and the ministry—such as environmental lawyers, environmental managers, and land use specialists,” Tim explains. “This allowed them to discuss, topic by topic, which measures are and aren’t relevant to medium-voltage systems and how those measures could be further developed.”
The team evaluated a broad spectrum of possible measures. These were filtered down to the most relevant and impactful options. These can be divided into four categories.
Tim: “First, streamlined processes for land-use matters. Second, exempting projects with minimal impact on the living environment from permitting requirements—such as installing an additional air conditioner or expanding a station just one meter beyond the original building line. Third, agreements with competent authorities—in practice, almost always municipalities—to prevent delays caused by lengthy discussions. And finally, creating alternative solutions.”
Track 2: Improving Collaboration Among Ourselves
This means there are several measures the House of Representatives can implement. Naturally, the grid operators also took a critical look at their own internal processes: how can these be improved to further accelerate progress? A key focus was the collaboration between TenneT and the regional grid operators regarding land acquisition.
“High-voltage transmission towers ultimately lead to a substation, where the electricity is converted to medium voltage,” explains Tijmen. “This is where TenneT and the regional grid operators come together: they must decide jointly where to build such a substation. We examined what improvements are needed in that collaboration with regard to land acquisition.”
This was the focus of the second strand of the analysis. The assessment was conducted through interviews and process analyses. “We spoke with a large number of land-use planning professionals at the four network operators to identify areas for improvement from each person’s perspective,” says Tijmen.
This has led to three specific areas for improvement. First, establishing clearer agreements regarding our joint working methods and increasing our understanding of each other’s processes, which vary considerably. Second, five specific recommendations for immediate improvements regarding routine land acquisition and site selection. And finally, opportunities to improve collaboration in strategic land acquisition.
That fits perfectly with our philosophy. It’s not just about delivering a report and saying, “Good luck with that,” but ensuring that it actually leads to tangible results.
From proposals to acceleration
The proposals from both tracks form the main input for a broader package of measures that was discussed with the State Secretary on June 18. nlmtd not only drafted the report but also later supported the development of this package. By making it highly action-oriented on the one hand and substantiating all improvements with their potential for acceleration on the other, it quickly became clear where exactly the potential lies for this package.
And this is just the beginning: to truly accelerate progress, the improvement initiatives still need to be implemented as part of the National Action Plan on Network Congestion. “We have solid proposals that will allow us to make a difference together,” says Daphne. “In the coming period, we all need to put this into practice so that we can actually experience shorter lead times.”
The parties involved in the National Action Program on Grid Congestion are now eager to get started on these measures so they can build energy infrastructure more quickly for residents and businesses. To this end, the measures will be further detailed in the coming period. nlmtd will remain involved in this phase as well.
“That fits perfectly with our philosophy,” says Tijmen. “It’s not about just delivering a report and saying, ‘Good luck with that,’ but ensuring that it actually leads to tangible results.”
These results are, of course, more than welcome among the grid operators. “Someone from the executive board recently told me that he’d heard so much positive feedback about this project,” says Tim. “It’s a textbook example of a project where we’ve truly succeeded in working together.”
Collaboration with an Emphasis on Work
According to him, three factors were key to this success. “First, we invested a lot of time early on in identifying the right approach and stakeholders, and we felt it was important for experts to engage in direct dialogue with one another. Second, we very clearly quantified which measures could actually accelerate progress. And third, we ensured specificity—we delved into the details where necessary and zoomed out to sketch the big picture.”
Tijmen adds that it was also crucial for everyone to meet in person. “That really brought the different parties closer together and greatly facilitated collaboration.”
As the client, Daphne also endorses the positive collaboration: “There were short lines of communication and good coordination, which made the collaboration run very smoothly.”
The idea that collaboration is essential for the energy transition has almost become a mantra within the sector. But there’s also a certain resistance to it. “In practice, collaboration often boils down mainly to talkingtogether, ”Tijmen notes. “And the grid operators believe the time for talking is now over: it’s high time to pick up the pace.”
“That’s the strength of this project,” he concludes: “That we’ve achieved very concrete results together. As someone once said to me: collaboration with an emphasis on action.”
