Netherlands vehicle‑based grid congestion pilots

In late July 2026, Dutch businesses reported severe net‑congestion, prompting a bidirectional car‑sharing trial by MyWheels in Utrecht and Eindhoven. The 350‑vehicle fleet, planned to grow to about 550 by year‑end, can feed electricity back to the grid during peak periods while serving as shared transport, offering a “double benefit” of reduced private car ownership and eased grid pressure.

A week later, the focus broadened to shared charging infrastructure. Vattenfall InCharge launched a pilot in Weert and 18 other municipalities to allow conventional cars to use public charging bays, while a winter test in Utrecht used roughly 3,500 public chargers to cut evening‑peak demand by up to 50 % through temporary speed reductions. Coordinated by grid operator Stedin, the trial demonstrated that most drivers could still fully charge overnight and introduced dynamic, day‑ahead load‑management signals as a scalable tool to mitigate congestion.

Together, the two pilots illustrate a rapid expansion of vehicle‑based demand‑side solutions in the Netherlands, moving from mobile battery cars to shared charging sites and real‑time load management to address structural grid congestion.