Hoogeveen, Wijster and then Meppel. Network manager Tennet starts with a three-stage rocket after the summer to expand the electricity grid in Southwest Drenthe. That should have been completed around 2031, but there are still some challenges involved.
“See it as a highway that becomes wider, so that more cars can drive over it,” explains Mabelle Kloppenburg from TenneT. If you translate that into a larger electricity grid, for example, more companies could get a connection in the future. That is not possible now, because it is just full of packed.
The expansion in Southwest Drenthe goes in three phases. In August the shovel will be in the ground at the Riegmeer business park in Hoogeveen, where a substation is being built. A thick electricity cable is then drawn from Wijster to Hoogeveen.
To connect that cable, there must first be a high -voltage station at Wijster itself. Those work will start from October and a few months later, the network operator will also set up such a station at Meppel-Noord. The construction of both will probably take 3 to 3.5 years.
But can companies and entrepreneurs who have been waiting for a connection for years? “No,” explains Anja Wanningen of TenneT. “There are still miles of cable to and from stations to get it to get it working.”
And with a lot of plots of land there must first be a conversation with the owners of the plots. “In some cases it is about dozens or hundreds of landowners,” adds Wanningen. “That also takes time.”
Zeijerveen station near Assen has been expanded since January. According to Tennet, that ensured that there was slowly some room to connect large companies to the net in the area.
In Zuidwest-Drenthe there is now a tinker and in the future around Emmen too. If all three extensions have been completed, you could split the province into three part nets: North, West and East.
That has a number of advantages Kloppenburg. “The highway at the start of the conversation, which actually gets more branches and detours. Power falls out of something, then another part of Drenthe does not necessarily have to be bothered by it. The networks are, as it were, to close each other.”
All extensions must ensure that Drenthe can continue to use the electricity grid in the future. According to Tennet, energy consumption will only increase due to the energy transition.