European demand for heat pumps was insatiable during the energy crisis that started in 2022, with manufacturers investing billions of euros in new production facilities to help energy consumers replace fossil fuel boilers. Although sustainable heating goals remain in place, the market has truly cooled down. Nowhere has this been more pronounced than in the Netherlands, which was one of the fastest-growing heat pump markets during the energy crisis. Energy journalist Karolin Schaps investigates the reasons behind the drop in heat pump demand and what it could mean for Europe’s sustainability and energy security targets.

Splitting any of the European electricity markets into smaller zones would have unintended consequences for power prices and would weigh on liquidity, Epex Spot has warned.

The percentage of trade orders submitted by computer applications on the Epex Spot continuous intraday market has risen to 87%, experts at the exchange said.

More than 2,000 companies globally have been involved in greenwashing incidents over the past four years, as scrutiny of unsubstantiated sustainability claims intensifies. While legislators such as those in the EU implement more stringent rules to tackle greenwashing – the practice of making false or misleading claims about the green or sustainable credentials of a product – companies are also increasingly being held accountable in court by anti-greenwashing litigation.

The Dutch government was closely monitoring the country’s gas storage levels but did not currently see a need to mandate the refilling of inventories, a spokesman told Montel.

The deep landing of green electricity produced by future Dutch offshore wind farms after 2031 is hanging by a thread after the government scrapped plans to lay high voltage direct current (HVDC) cables to transport offshore wind electricity inland.

The Dutch gas TSO Gasunie has warned that wholesale gas prices could rise further if temperatures continue to drop amid a tight gas supply situation.

The Dutch government has scrapped its 2030 target for 3 GW of offshore floating solar capacity, with the market not yet developed sufficiently to meet the ambitious goal set in 2023.

The Dutch upper house of parliament on Tuesday voted in favour of scrapping the country’s net metering scheme, which recompenses producers of household solar for feeding energy back into the grid, from 1 January 2027.

(Montel) EP NL is considering alternative power production options including installing a battery or using hydrogen as fuel for its 750 MW Rijnmond 1 CCGT plant, which it plans to close. The company, a Dutch subsidiary of Czech utility EPH, announced on Monday it would end operations at Rijnmond 1 on 31 March 2026 unless the government implemented a capacity mechanism.

The Netherlands has entered a construction-calm period following the delivery of the 2.3GW Hollandse Kust Noord and Zuid offshore wind farms over the past year. With 4.7GW installed by the end of 2023, the country surpassed its 10-year target of 4.5GW set in 2013. Next off the production line will be the Ecowende project. A consortium of Shell, Eneco and Japan’s Chubu – which entered the partnership in February – is expected to start building the 760MW Hollandse Kust West 6 site in September 2025, with completion scheduled towards the end of 2026.

(Montel) Dutch TSO Tennet has successfully integrated the Dutch electricity market with the EU-wide power balancing platform Picasso, it said, following prior delays.

The new right-leaning Dutch government is considering scaling back the country’s 2040 offshore wind target of 50 GW due to its plans to build four new nuclear power stations, a government spokesman told Montel.

Dutch power TSO Tennet expects limited impact on prices when the country joins EU-wide power balancing platform Picasso on the week of the 14 October, a spokesman told Montel.

The amount of electricity produced from wind and solar generation in the Netherlands overtook output from gas and coal-fired plants in the six months to June, Dutch statistics office CBS said.

Dutch gas TSO Gasunie is discussing how it can compensate gas traders affected by an IT issue which caused TTF balancing prices to trade below EUR -1,000/MWh late on Tuesday, a spokeswoman said. A technical issue resulted in faulty allocation data being submitted into the TTF balancing market, she said on Wednesday. This caused the TTF balancing price for delivery between 18:00 and 19:00 CET to fall as low as EUR -1,175/MWh.

A letter from UN-appointed independent human rights experts to oil giant Saudi Aramco and its financiers has attracted intense interest. Global Insight assesses what the increasing legal pressure on companies means in the context of the climate crisis and human rights.

The Dutch market is braced for a slowdown as grid and policy challenges dampen expectations for growth. An ongoing review of environmental regulations, growing local opposition strengthened by the recent election success of anti-green right wing parties, and the everpresent conflict over restricted space in the densely-populated farming nation are posing serious challenges.

In the conflict between land use for food production versus green energy generation, new technology promises to eradicate the either-or-question: agrivoltaics. The European Union (EU) is keen to support the integration of solar panels into farming as a way to meet its renewable energy targets, but energy journalist Karolin Schaps finds hurdles remain along the way.

The Netherlands’ largest and decommissioned gas field at Groningen has been producing minimal amounts of emergency gas following a governmental security of supply order amid a cold snap.