Alliander (Liander)

Liander, the grid operator of the Alliander group, builds and runs the cables and pipes that bring electricity, gas and heat to about three million homes and businesses in six Dutch regions. Alliander is owned by provinces and municipalities and employs about 10,800 people. In 2025 it invested more than two billion euros in its networks. It is also preparing its infrastructure for heat and hydrogen and supports flexible energy markets. Together with the other Dutch grid operators, Liander is behind ElaadNL, the knowledge centre for smart charging.

Liander joined NEON because electric charging is one of the larger and less predictable changes its grid faces, and because that change is not only technical: regulation, business models and the behaviour of drivers decide how it plays out. A grid built today has to serve for forty to fifty years, so Liander has to make good decisions for a whole range of possible futures.

Its contribution started from its own experience: inverters equipped with smart, autonomous controls for voltage, reactive power and active power can support the grid and avoid or delay grid investments that society pays for. In NEON's work package on medium-voltage fast charging, Liander wanted these controls developed further for the new generation of large chargers. Liander also brought its knowledge of scenario building and grid regulation to the work on DC grids, local energy markets, regulation and standardisation.

From the former NEON website

About Alliander (Liander)

Liander develops and operates energy networks. Through our cables and pipes, over three million Dutch households and companies are supplied with electricity, gas and heating. We operate a 90,000km electricity grid and a 40,000km gas network, and we take great pride in our networks being among the world’s most reliable. Our colleagues make sure the lights are on, homes are heated and businesses can keep operating. We are driven by the social importance of keeping energy reliable, affordable and accessible for everyone.

The world around us is changing rapidly and the energy transition is in full swing. Wind turbines, solar panels, EV charging stations, heat pumps: the Netherlands is switching to an energy system with large volumes of locally generated power and more different kinds of energy. Alliander plays a key role in this, with our knowledge and skills, we are helping the Netherlands make the right choices in the energy transition.

Role in NEON

From our experience we know that inverters can support the grid and avoid or delay socialised grid investments when equipped by smart autonomous U/Q/P controls. In NEON we want to further investigate and develop these favourable controls for the MV chargers research in WP5. These new large chargers than can bring additional societal value in more advanced grid design policies that we develop for our MV-grids with high penetration of renewables.

Besides the electrical side of mobility we have a large interest in modelling how the energy use will develop in the future. As we invest in grids with a life time for 40-50 years we now have to make intelligent decision for a range of futures. The charging behaviour (socially, economically and regulatory driven) can have major impact on the capacity and functionality of the grid. Bringing in our knowledge on scenario building, grid related regulation, and grid impact of charging behaviour contributes the help NEON researchers build on our sector knowledge.

Motivation for joining NEON

We participate in NEON as it investigates one of the bigger and unknown changes that affect our grid: the charging of electric mobility. This is not a pure technical issue but especially the interaction with regulatory parameters, business models and social behaviour aspects of charging electric vehicles makes the change. Our grids will facilitate this change and by participating we get insights in the desired change on one side and on the other side bring grid knowledge into the development of chargers so these chargers can help optimize the energy systems.

Text from the former NEON website (original page).