Asset classes¶
Most of the published numbers are annual flow (what was laid or built that year), not stock (what is installed in total). The stock figures anchor modelling, and Stedin headlines them less cleanly than the flows, so several of these figures are order-of-magnitude, with the exact value sitting in the open GIS data rather than in prose.
Substations¶
The distribution layer is the well-reported stock: around 26,500 distribution substations (trafohuisjes, converting medium to low voltage) under management as of the 2022 report, growing by a few hundred a year, with the 2024 report recording 478 added in 2022, 266 in 2023 and 353 in 2024.
The higher-voltage stations (regional HV and HV/MV substations) are not given a clean single count in these sources; press references to “500 stations” in a build year mix the two tiers, so that figure is flow and mostly trafohuisjes rather than a stock of large substations.
Transformers¶
No clean total is published. As a modelling proxy, transformer count roughly tracks the distribution-substation stock ( order of tens of thousands of MV/LV units, roughly one per trafohuisje) plus a smaller population of large power transformers at the regional HV and HV/MV stations. Capacity added is reported instead of counts: 513 MVA extra in 2023, 344 MVA in 2024 (2024 report).
Cable length¶
Reported almost entirely as annual flow: roughly 680 km laid in 2021, 892 km in 2023, 1,013 km in 2024 (2024 report). The total installed stock is not headlined in what these sources give. By comparison the neighbouring operator Liander’s investment plan sets out nearly 40,000 km on medium voltage alone this decade, so Stedin’s electricity stock is plausibly in the low tens of thousands of km, with the exact split by voltage sitting in the open GIS data rather than in the reports.
Gas network length¶
Again mostly flow: around 242 km of mains laid in 2021, and a replacement programme of 212 km of brittle pipe (grey cast iron, asbestos cement) removed in 2023, and the 2023 report targets all brittle pipe for removal before 2028. The replacement map is downloadable, which is the better route to the stock than the prose.
Voltage levels¶
The structural cut, sharpened by the Energiewet, is transmission above 110 kV (TenneT) versus distribution below 110 kV (Stedin). Within Stedin’s distribution estate: low voltage at 230/400 V, medium voltage typically in the 10 to 25 kV band, and regional high voltage up to around 50 kV feeding from TenneT’s 150 kV transport. On gas, low-pressure distribution regionally, with pipelines at 16 bar and above sitting under ILT rather than SodM for safety oversight. Congestion in the port and surrounding regions is anchored at TenneT’s 150 kV level (2023 report).
Control centres¶
One central operational control room, the Bedrijfsvoeringscentrum, running real-time monitoring of both the electricity and gas networks. High-voltage operation and maintenance is run jointly with TenneT through the TensZ joint venture, so that tier is shared rather than solely internal.
Meter population¶
Around 2.3 to 2.4 million connections across the service area, with smart-meter penetration reported at 84.7 per cent of households end-2022 rising to 87 per cent end-2023 (2023 report), and installation running in the low hundreds of thousands per year. The smart-metering data channel itself runs through the Utility Connect joint venture with Alliander.
EV charging growth¶
Reported as a low-voltage load driver rather than an asset Stedin owns. In some urban areas about 20 per cent of all capacity being built to 2030 is consumed by street charging, and the operator frames it as a direct trade: for each charge point switched off in the evening peak, roughly one extra new-build home could be connected, scaling to tens of thousands of homes across a province (Stedin group press release, and the 2024 report). The pressure sits in the evening peak, roughly 16:00 to 21:00.
Solar integration¶
More than 145,000 customers took up solar in a single year (2023), with the reverse-flow problem now visible: around 3,000 voltage complaints from inverters dropping out at midday because the street cable was saturated with solar. Cable pooling is the mitigation for combined solar and wind connections. The stress here is midday low-voltage overvoltage, the mirror image of the evening EV peak.
Spatial data and modelling¶
Flows and stocks are distinct, and press material blurs them: a model fed annual laying figures as if they were installed base would be wrong by an order of magnitude. The two clean stock anchors are the roughly 26,500 distribution substations and the roughly 2.3 to 2.4 million connections; network lengths are better taken from the spatial data than the prose.
Stedin publishes open location data as GIS shapefiles: the low-voltage network geometry, the medium-voltage station locations, and the brittle-gas replacement map, openable in any GIS tool. It also publishes aggregated small-consumer consumption open data per connection area. Between the substation stock, the connection count, the voltage structure and those two open datasets, the realistic model has its skeleton and its spatial substrate.
Last updated: 11 July 2026