Every day, we work on solutions for the challenges of the energy transition. We create new opportunities for our colleagues and customers through practical, scalable innovations.
We discover opportunities and ideas with our customers and partners and turn them into new solutions. Our innovation strategy focuses on three key challenges to ensure reliable, sustainable, and affordable energy for all.
Challenge 1: How can we promote energy carriers other than electricity?
Sustainable molecules
With a focus on sustainable molecules, we are exploring alternatives to electricity, such as green hydrogen, heat, and biomethane. These energy carriers are indispensable for a future, sustainable energy system. As a grid operator, we are working to ensure that they play an increasingly important role. We are contributing to the growth of biomethane and preparing the network for hydrogen distribution, including developing a dedicated hydrogen proposition for business customers.
We are also enabling increasing volumes of biomethane to be fed into the existing gas network. This requires bidirectional operation of the network. While one-way flow is sufficient for traditional gas transport, sustainable gases are injected at multiple locations, making bidirectional flow essential. To support this, we are developing new network components, such as a gas drying installation required for injecting gas into the Gasunie network.
In the field of hydrogen, we aim to strengthen cooperation with other grid operators. To this end, we are exploring the possibility of establishing a central organisation for hydrogen distribution within Netbeheer Nederland.
Challenge 2: How can we make smarter use of existing energy infrastructure to reduce grid congestion?
Sustainable businesses
We are exploring solutions to meet the growing demand for grid capacity from businesses, driven in part by their transition to more sustainable energy sources. The main challenge is grid congestion. To address this, we are developing solutions that smooth or reduce peak demand, improving grid load distribution, and aligning supply and demand more closely on local grids. We are also examining the role of alternative energy sources, such as renewable gases, in meeting businesses’ energy needs. Finally, we are developing innovations that enable our business customers to use energy more flexibly.
Last year, we developed an opportunity map to help provinces, municipalities, and businesses identify promising locations for energy hubs. We also introduced a management protocol for energy hubs and launched a new flexible proposition for business customers. In addition, we rolled out an innovation to enable new business parks in areas affected by grid congestion. These ‘greenfield energy hubs’ require virtually no additional capacity from the overhead grid. This is made possible by smart, local coordination of supply and demand within the hubs, combined with on-site energy generation and storage.
Grid-aware residential areas
How can we make residential areas more sustainable while using scarce grid capacity as efficiently as possible? In our vision of the future, grid-aware construction plays a key role. Residential areas will become more decentralised, supply-driven, and self-sufficient, with a strong focus on using locally generated energy within the neighbourhood.
One example of this approach is the use of seasonal energy storage in residential areas in the Joule4Joule programme. In addition, we are working with market parties to develop solutions that allow households to use high-peak-power appliances in a grid-aware way. This includes charging points, home batteries, solar panels, and heat pumps. These measures help prevent congestion in residential areas and reduce peak loads on higher-level grids. In this context, we are also developing innovations specifically aimed at grid-aware new-build projects.
We actively encourage local authorities and property developers to make grid-aware choices that can significantly reduce the amount of grid capacity required. To support this, we raise awareness of grid-aware construction, develop tools that provide insight into its opportunities and benefits, and explore more disruptive solutions, such as residential areas designed to actively reduce congestion.
In parallel, we are developing a tool for the so-called autonomous energy grid. This concept involves a system that enables grid operators, market parties, and citizens to access and manage dynamic, automated, near-real-time flexible energy capacity. We are currently building the first components of this system. These include sharing control signals based on DALI and forecast data, controlling individual and aggregated assets via suppliers, and balancing assets at the neighbourhood level through congestion service providers and energy cooperatives.
The next step is to create an open system that enables multiple market parties and citizens to participate, and in which all flexible energy capacity can be registered and dynamically deployed. This will enable optimal grid balancing and support fair energy pricing. This is our ambition for 2030. Along the way, we will implement interim solutions that contribute, step by step, to achieving this goal.
Challenge 3: How can we radically accelerate grid expansion?
Operation of the future
Enexis lays many kilometres of cables every year. How can we achieve this in a smarter, faster, and safer way? We continuously look for new solutions, working closely with our own colleagues and with contractors. In 2025, this led to the completion of the MS Stekkerbaar competition. The winning prefabricated solution, developed by Prysmian, consists of a highly flexible cable with a pre-assembled right-angle plug and connection sleeve. During trial installations, this innovation enabled technicians to connect compact substations more quickly and ergonomically. We are currently further refining and testing this solution within our networks. Together with other grid operators, we are also assessing which technical variants best meet our different requirements. Our aim is to standardise wherever possible while ensuring solutions are suitable for the most common situations in practice.
The success of this competition encouraged us to take the next step. In collaboration with Stedin and Alliander, we launched LV-NExT, an open testing-ground challenge that invites the global market to develop disruptive innovations. Our ambition is to install low-voltage grids 10 times faster. The ideas developed so far are promising, and in 2026, we will begin testing them in our first dedicated testing ground.