Exploratory cost outlook Netbeheer Nederland scenarios 2025
Why did Kalavasta analyse the cost implications of the Netbeheer Nederland scenarios?
Various energy system models are used in the Netherlands to develop energy scenarios, which serve as a basis for policy development, investment decisions and as system context for other energy studies. Two of the most prominent scenario sets are those of TNO, built with the OPERA model, and those of Netbeheer Nederland, built with the Energy Transition Model. In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the financial consequences of the energy transition for citizens, businesses and government. To analyse such scenarios systematically on their costs, from the national level down to end users and per sector and value chain, the prototype cost tool INKTVIS was developed. The then Ministry of Climate and Green Growth asked Kalavasta to apply this prototype to the Netbeheer Nederland scenarios, generating and analysing their cost pictures and comparing these with the scenarios based on OPERA.
What are the main findings comparing costs across different scenarios?
National costs rise in all four Netbeheer Nederland scenarios towards 2050, and the differences between scenarios are limited in the early years but grow over time. In all scenarios a shift takes place from costs dominated by energy carriers towards costs dominated by investments. Costs for electricity grids increase steadily in every scenario, and infrastructure makes up a growing share of the costs that end users ultimately bear. Hydrogen turns out to be considerably more expensive per unit of demand than electricity, so scenarios that rely more heavily on hydrogen come out relatively expensive, while an oversized supply side relative to demand also appears to raise costs. Electrification therefore seems the cheaper route at system level than a broad deployment of hydrogen. These conclusions should nonetheless be interpreted with care: similar totals do not mean the scenarios are similar behind those totals, and which cost categories appear largest is partly a product of methodological scope.
Why do the ETM-based and OPERA-based scenarios show such large cost differences?
Although the total national costs of the ETM and OPERA scenarios are comparable in 2030, the underlying cost drivers already diverge considerably in that year, and the gap widens substantially towards 2050. The two models differ in the scope of assets they include: OPERA appears more complete for industry, greenhouse horticulture, agriculture and transport, while the ETM includes assets such as battery storage, air conditioning and hydrogen carrier conversion that OPERA lacks. The models also differ in assumed capacities, technical parameters such as lifetime and full-load hours, and fundamentally different calculation methods for certain cost categories, such as insulation costs and electricity infrastructure costs. Together these differences make it difficult to draw direct conclusions about which underlying system choices are actually driving the cost outcomes.
What is the main recommendation that follows from this exploratory study?
Given the scale of the cost gaps and differences identified between the ETM and OPERA based scenarios, it is strongly recommended that the cost gaps be mutually filled in and that the cost differences be harmonised at a detailed, technology level. Equally important are the methodological choices underlying the cost pictures. Scope questions, such as whether the processing of fuels is assessed only on purchases or also on sales, and how costs are allocated between value chains, strongly influence the outcomes and their interpretation, and therefore deserve explicit attention. Only once the scenario cost pictures are made more consistent in both content and methodology can they be reliably used to build a genuinely integral understanding of the financial consequences of the energy transition, both by the model developers themselves and by external users.