A typical Dutch household will pay around €89 more for electricity transmission and €52 more for gas in 2027, after regulator ACM released its forecast for the network fees your grid operator charges.
That’s a rise of nearly 20%. You can read the full breakdown on the NOS, but here’s the part worth sitting down for: this €141 has nothing to do with how much energy you actually burn.
Separate from your usage, you also pay your netbeheerder (grid operator) for maintaining and upgrading the network that brings power to your door.
That’s the chunk going up, and the price of the gas and electricity itself is a completely different bill that’s also climbing.
The energy itself? Already expensive, getting worse
Gas and electricity in the Netherlands are already pricey, and thanks to events far outside Dutch borders, they’re set to climb further.
The benchmark Dutch TTF gas price has pushed above €70 per megawatt-hour, its highest since spring, as renewed fighting between the US and Iran raises fears over LNG shipments from the Persian Gulf.
Roughly a fifth of the world’s LNG normally passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively closed by the conflict.
Bad timing, given Europe is trying to fill its gas storage before winter. So when your 2027 bill arrives, the network fee hike is only half the story.
Why the network fee spike?
The short version: the Netherlands wants to build more homes and lean less on fossil fuels shipped in from abroad.
But every new neighbourhood and every offshore wind farm needs more cables and transformer stations, and someone has to foot the construction bill.
According to industry body Netbeheer Nederland, the transport portion works out to roughly €12 extra per month for the average household, including VAT.
Part of why 2027 stings so much is that earlier grid expansions turned out pricier than expected.
ACM has also switched to a new calculation method, which reimburses grid operators faster and lets them respond better to the uncertain costs of expanding the network.
Some grid operators charge more than others
Not everyone gets the same shock — it depends on which company runs the grid where you live.
According to figures published by the NOS, electricity tariffs at Liander are set to climb 23%, while Enexis and Stedin both rise about 17%.
The slightly-less-bad news: Netbeheer Nederland doesn’t expect a fifth-sized jump every year. After 2027, it reckons the annual rise will settle to more like 5 to 7%.
Who ends up paying?
There’s a bigger question underneath all this. Grid operators face an investment bill of around €235 billion over the next 15 years, and how that gets divided up is ultimately a political choice.
Officials have looked at options to keep costs bearable — subsidising heat networks, for instance, which would mean fewer heat pumps and less pressure on the electricity grid.
Another route is funding the investments from the state coffers, though that essentially shifts the burden onto future generations.
Grid operators are also floating a flexible tariff from 2029, where the price would depend on the time of day you use electricity, much like the off-peak and peak rates that already exist for supply.
The idea is to smooth out the peaks, cutting the need for costly upgrades.
For now, the definitive tariffs won’t be locked in until ACM confirms them in December. Until then, it might be worth looking at what you can control, like going fully green, getting your head around how Dutch utilities actually work, or weighing up solar panels.
Are you feeling the squeeze of rising energy costs in the Netherlands? Let us know how you’re coping in the comments below.
