The Netherlands & Quartz Solar: Forecasting a Stable Future for Europe's Top Solar Nation
As the Dutch solar boom tests grid limits, the arrival of our cutting-edge forecasting tool, Quartz Solar, brings the innovation needed for a more efficient and resilient energy landscape.
When you picture a solar energy hotspot in Europe, you probably imagine the sun-drenched plains of Spain or the rolling hills of Italy. You likely don’t picture the Netherlands, a country famous for its windmills, canals, and often-overcast skies.
And yet, the Netherlands has quietly become a solar superpower. Did you know that the country in question now boasts Europe's highest solar capacity per person? This incredible success story, however, has a complex and challenging side. As Dutch solar capacity has exploded, the electricity grid is beginning to show strain.
Source: Ember
^Currently used is top 6 european countries in terms of GDP.
That’s why we’re thrilled to announce the expansion of our forecasting services to the Netherlands. We believe one of the keys to improving the Dutch energy grid lies in better data and more accurate forecasting.
A Nation Powered by Rooftops
First, let's look at the scale of the success. The Netherlands has more installed solar capacity per person than any other European country, being almost five times that of the UK. This has helped turn the nation into a net energy exporter, sending 7 TWh of electricity across its borders and $537 million worth of electricity being imported into the UK in 2023.
What’s most remarkable is how this happened. The Dutch solar boom isn’t being driven by vast, utility-scale solar farms. It's being driven by rooftops. An astonishing 88% of the country's solar capacity sits on rooftops of homes and businesses, with 34% of Dutch homes having solar power.
Source: Sunsave here
Congestion and Curtailment
This distributed power grid, while empowering, creates its own challenges. When the sun shines, millions of independent home systems pour energy onto the grid simultaneously. Predicting this collective surge can be difficult and it's leading to severe grid congestion.
Think of it like a sudden traffic jam on the energy highway. When there's more power being supplied than the grid's infrastructure can handle, operators are left with a difficult choice. To prevent system-wide failures, they are often forced to curtail, or deliberately shut down, perfectly good sources of clean energy. Every curtailed kilowatt is wasted potential, a setback for decarbonisation, and a financial loss.
Adding to this complexity is the Netherlands’ location in between three of the biggest grids in Europe - Great Britain, Germany and France. This makes supply, demand and volatility even more precarious.
While a modernised grid, scalable storage, and responsive demand are crucial components to tackling curtailment, the accuracy of our forecasts plays a key role to better anticipate and alleviate the resulting congestion, ensuring renewable energy is used as effectively as possible.
When Clean Energy Becomes a Liability
The most dramatic symptom of forecasting inaccuracy is extreme electricity price volatility. When the grid is unexpectedly flooded with solar power, the laws of supply and demand kick in, causing wholesale electricity prices to plummet.
This effect has contributed to a startling phenomenon: negative prices. In 2024, the Netherlands experienced 458 hours where energy producers had to pay to offload their electricity onto the grid.
Negative prices create financial uncertainty for renewable energy investors and can, perversely, make the grid more reliant on fossil fuels. Gas plants, which can be controlled more easily, are often called upon to provide stability, undermining the very progress solar energy is meant to drive.
Additionally, the Netherlands has had some of the highest electricity prices in western Europe this year, partly due to these grid bottlenecks. For wholesale electricity prices in July 2025, the average price of electricity per mega watt hour was roughly €30 higher in the Netherlands than they were in France.
The Solution: Building a More Predictable Future
This is where Quartz Solar comes in. We believe that to build a reliable, efficient, and truly green grid, you need to be able to predict its core components.
Our state-of-the-art, AI-powered models provide some of the most accurate, short-term solar forecasts available today. By delivering precise, granular predictions of solar generation, from the national level right down to specific regions and sites, we give grid operators the visibility they need to anticipate surges, manage congestion, and reduce the need for wasteful curtailment.
Get Involved and Be Part of the Solution
Ambitious, renewable growth requires innovative infrastructure. That's why we're bringing our cutting-edge, leading solar generation forecast to the Netherlands, helping support the country's solar vision.
Grid Operators, Energy Traders, and Utilities: Accurate forecasting is essential for reducing financial risk and optimising your operations. Reach out to us today to learn how our high accuracy forecast services can be integrated into your systems.
Get in touch
For Developers and Data Scientists: Our core solar prediction model is open source. Do you want to help contribute to a better world? You can explore our work via GitHub, use our data, and contribute to building the best possible forecasting tools.
Explore our GitHub
Reference:
(2) TenneT 2023 annual market update: https://tennet-drupal.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/default/2024-07/Annual%20Market%20Update%202023%20v.2.pdf
(3) OEC, UK imports and exports of electricity: https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/electricity/reporter/gbr?selector1151id=2023