Netherlands Forced to Ration Electricity

Fooled. The Dutch were urged to buy electric vehicles, but are now not allowed to charge them between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. This is necessary to reduce the load on the overloaded electricity grid during peak hours, according to Dutch grid operator Stedin. In 2024, sales of electric cars fell sharply, as few could afford them or want the small electric vehicles they could afford. The negative trend has intensified this year and with electricity rationing, the industry believes that sales will now plummet. Photo: Wiki/Ludovic Hirlimann

The Netherlands is being forced to ration electricity after its overloaded grid began to buckle under the pressure of sharply increased energy transmission. A forced “green transition” – where everything must be electric – in order to achieve globalist-mandated “climate goals” has been carried out at a furious pace without giving grid operators time to develop the grid. Experts see it as an indicator of what will soon hit more countries in Europe, many of which have already begun to be seriously affected in various ways. At the same time, China is pulling out of the EU.

In mid-July, more than 11,900 Dutch companies were waiting in line to access the Netherlands’ new “green network.” A large number of public institutions and buildings such as hospitals, schools and fire stations are also waiting in line – despite several of them being classified as essential businesses.

Thousands of new private homes, often new builds, are also waiting to be allowed to connect to the electricity grid. In some areas of the Netherlands, there are warnings that they may have to wait until the 2030s. This is a problem for both construction companies, who cannot sell the homes, and buyers, who are now left with a new home without electricity and therefore worthless, which they cannot move into, while at the same time being forced to pay interest on mortgages and other housing costs.

The crisis has arisen solely as a consequence of the country submitting to globalists and the EU’s climate directives (in that order), or as Dutch politicians put it, “fighting to reduce carbon emissions.”

Warning Example

Peter Imanuelsen, Swedish journalist and second-most influential Swedish media figure known online as PeterSweden: “How can something like this happen in Europe in 2025???” in a tweet on July 14th that was seen by 3.2 million on X Photo: Private

Several experts are now warning that several European countries will be affected. In particular, the United Kingdom, Belgium and the industrial nation of Germany – which is Europe’s “economic engine” – are all said to be “in trouble.”

One of these experts is Zsuzsanna Pató from the Brussels-based energy think tank RAP. “Other European countries should definitely see what is happening in the Netherlands as a warning,” she told British media.

After Dutch politicians shut down production at the large Groningen gas field last year, the country’s government has pushed for a rapid transition to electric heating from solar and wind power, which often relies on extensive and expensive battery storage. In order for Dutch politicians to achieve the climate goals imposed by globalists, gas stoves and central heating, which is heated by burning natural gas or biogas in central heating plants, must be replaced with electric alternatives. At the same time, the population is being urged to buy electric cars, so that all vehicles with combustion engines can be phased out. There are a number of similar examples in different areas, and all are being rushed and have deadlines to meet.

This has meant that the national electricity grid has not been able to be expanded quickly enough to keep up with the greatly increased electricity consumption from the forced transition, which has created extensive bottlenecks and also driven up costs from already very high levels.

Overload fire. The high-voltage lines in the Netherlands are so overloaded that they sometimes cause fires in transformer stations, as can be seen here. The power lines also smoke heavily because they are overheated. The wind turbines in the background (left) make the image very telling. Still image: Energy Future

The Netherlands is therefore forced to start rationing electricity this year to avoid their already heavily overloaded electricity grid collapsing, resulting in uncontrollable power outages.

Unimaginable Costs

Dutch officials estimate that an incredible 200 billion euros will be needed by 2040 to expand network capacity.

An expensive transition: Dutch electricity prices are higher than in neighboring countries, including notoriously expensive countries like France, Belgium, Germany and Denmark. The chart shows wholesale electricity prices in July 2025 (€ per MWh). We can see that electricity prices are almost three times higher in the Netherlands than they are in Sweden, second at the bottom of the table. Source: Ember, Chart: FT

Moment 22. The Netherlands has a housing shortage and plans to build 900,000 new homes by 2030. But the houses that are now being built have to wait in line for many years to be connected to the “green electricity grid”. Since only electricity is allowed to be used for heating in almost all newly built houses, no one can move into them and they therefore remain empty. Photo: Dutch News

Electricity prices in the country are already among the highest in Western Europe, and Dutch households and businesses are the ones who will ultimately pay the trillions now needed to expand the electricity grid in their country alone. This does not even include all other transition costs, such as further expanding solar and wind energy.

To balance demand, operators are offering lower electricity prices during times of lower load. Large industries are also being urged to shut down their electricity consumption and thus production completely for several hours a day.

In a national advertising campaign, the authorities are also urging the public to avoid charging electric bicycles and electric cars – which the population has been urged to buy in previous national advertising campaigns – between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m., when the electricity grid is at its busiest.

Dutch politicians have – against the will of their own people – been one of Europe’s most aggressive advocates of the so-called “green transition”, with the stated goal of halving “carbon dioxide emissions” by 2030. Now the people and the business community are paying the price for the politicians’ craze for globalist agendas.

Local Politicians Sound the Alarm

Current electricity shortage and subsequent rationing has caused great concern among the population and even among some local politicians, who say that companies are now withdrawing from investment plans and that others have begun planning to move abroad. Both of these measures are devastating for many Dutch towns, which are completely dependent on local businesses.

One of these politicians is Jeroen Dijsselbloem, mayor of Brainport Eindhoven, the high-tech southern region – often called Europe’s Silicon Valley – and home to semiconductor giant ASML, among others. He says that the necessary electricity transmission capacity will not be available until 2027 at the earliest and explains what is needed: “Everything has become electric and the electricity infrastructure needs to grow massively. We need at least a hundred new medium-sized substations and 4,000 small ones,” he told British media.

Skills shortage. Dutch grid operators say they are also facing a shortage of 28,000 trained technicians, which is delaying efforts to install the necessary infrastructure. This is being solved by advertising and recruiting outside Europe and then “flying in experts and engineers” from Africa and elsewhere. This misspelled ad reads “Move to the Netherlands, as a professional (sic!) electrical technician”. Image: Jit Global Consult Ltd.

Demand for substations is currently greater than supply, which drives up prices and results in long delivery times. In addition, there is a huge shortage of trained electricians, electrical and power engineers.

Europe Falls into Darkness

The EU is stagnating. This diagram shows energy consumption per person in kWh (y-axis) during the years 1965–2023 (x-axis). We can once again clearly see that China is growing and the EU is stagnating. Overload in the electricity grid inhibits energy consumption and thus economic growth and the development of new companies, as energy availability is directly proportional to a country’s level of development and standard of living. This is what used to separate developed countries from developing countries. The “green transition” is leading to negative growth and new poverty, where developed countries are now stagnating and could therefore be called “s-countries” (a term now coined by Nya Tider). Source: El – Statistical Review of World Energy, Diagram: Our World in Data

The Netherlands is not the only or first European country to be affected. In April, both Spain and Portugal were hit by nationwide blackouts, after the Iberian Peninsula’s electricity grid collapsed from overload due to excessive demand. Tens of millions of people and tens of thousands of businesses were suddenly left without electricity at noon on April 28, when the peninsula was disconnected from the European grid for ten hours. In many places, the blackout lasted much longer and claimed at least half a dozen lives. Never in modern times have entire countries in Europe been plunged into darkness for so long.

In the Netherlands, some companies are now trying to solve the problem themselves. One example is the American pharmaceutical company Thermo Fisher, which has a large production facility near Eindhoven, which has been forced to invest in its own solar power plant with solar panels on the roofs and massive battery storage to avoid being affected by rationing.

Smaller companies are working with local authorities to build joint “energy hubs” that allow businesses to coordinate access to the electricity grid. Some private initiatives are trying to do the same collectively with neighbors.

China is pulling away. This diagram shows the world’s largest electricity producers and how many thousand TWh (y-axis) they produced during the years 1984–2024 (x-axis). We can see how China produced 10.1K TWh of electricity last year – more than the USA, EU and India combined. The EU is also the one that is clearly reducing its energy production. In 2024, the EU also had the largest share of renewable energy at 48.7 percent and used the least share of coal, 10.7 percent, compared to China, the USA and India. Nevertheless, European countries should pull themselves together to become even more “efficient in the climate class”. Source: Our World in Data, Diagram: Visual Capitalist

In combination with skyrocketing energy prices, ironically, many urgent solutions that try to tackle the problems of the green transition are driven by the underlying globalist agenda. Once again, they succeed in the trick: Problem (which they created) – Reaction – Solution (which drives the agenda forward). Everyone loses financially, except the globalists and possibly the electricity companies, but as always, it is ordinary people who lose the most. They even lose access to electricity – something that has long been taken for granted in Europe and all developed countries, but which is no longer the case today. Critics call it controlled deindustrialization.