Recording of Tuesday, June 23, 2026 | The smarter E Europe Conferences 2026 | Language: English | Duration: 10:43 .

Enhancing Flexibility and Efficiency in the Netherlands' Energy Grid

The Netherlands' energy grid faces significant capacity challenges due to increasing electrification and decentralization. This growing demand leads to annual societal costs ranging from 10 to 40 billion euros. To address these, measures such as improving efficiency, expanding the grid, and leveraging flexibility from the distribution system operator (DSO) perspective are being implemented. A key innovation is 'Grid as a Service' (GaaS), which improves grid management by providing a scalable framework that integrates various resources for enhanced operational efficiency. Currently, system operations achieve 96% autonomy in managing grid congestion, processing vast amounts of data to solve issues with minimal human intervention. Efforts to streamline customer management have resulted in the conversion of about 2,000 customers from a previous waiting list of nearly 10,000 to flexible contracts. The strategic goal is to expand participation in demand response programs from 540 to 8,000 customers, emphasizing the importance of time-of-use windows and voltage-regulated contracts.

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Speaker

Mark Nigge-Uricher
Senior Business Developer
Alliander N.V.
The Netherlands

Talk of session: Turning Industrial and Commercial Demand Side Flexibility into Value

Industrial and commercial flexibility is no longer experimental - it is becoming a core part of network operation and market participation. Across Europe, DSOs, transmission system operators (TSOs), aggregators and retailers are moving from isolated pilots to coordinated programs that avoid grid upgrades and deliver real capacity and financial value for all participants.This session focuses on the operational integration of C&I flexibility into routine grid workflows through dispatch, settlement, verification and commercial models. It highlights how flexibility is embedded in daily operations: from automated dispatch and verification tools to new contractual models that reward large energy users for adapting consumption. You will gain insight into replicable approaches for scaling flex portfolios, integrating them into control-room workflows and ensuring fair value-sharing across utilities, service providers and industrial consumers.

Further Talks of this session:

Industrial Flexibility: Best Practices Across Energy Intensive Industries in Europe

Speaker

Michael Villa
Executive Director
smartEn
Belgium

To Talk

Making Flexibility Bankable: From Pilots to Daily Operations for Operators, Aggregators and C&I Users

Speaker

Laura Casolo Ginelli
R&D Programme Manager
Hive Power
Switzerland

To Talk

From Forecast to Dispatch: Operational Reliability of Flexibility Across Diverse C&I Portfolios

Speaker

Romain Serres
Co-Founder and CEO
Tilt Energy
Germany

To Talk

Panel Discussion

To Talk