Josefien Tiel Groenestege works at Alliander. She moves at the intersection of energy, space and societal transitions — working on a fundamental question: how do we build an energy system that not only functions technically, but also fits within the spatial, economic and social realities of tomorrow?
In her work, Josefien brings together governments, grid operators, businesses and area developers around complex decisions about energy infrastructure. She works on questions where investment decisions, spatial planning and public interests converge — from regional programming to the sustainable transformation of industrial and port areas.
What drives her is the conviction that the energy transition is not just a technical challenge, but also a question of distribution and organisation. Who takes responsibility? How do you allocate scarce space and resources? And how do you ensure that public and private parties jointly steer towards a future-proof energy system?
She advocates an approach in which parties do not face each other across the table, but work together from a shared interest on the energy and spatial challenges that will be defining for the Netherlands in the decades to come.
The energy transition is moving fast — but who is actually steering it? Governments set targets. Businesses make investments. Port authorities manage the space where both must meet. And somewhere in between, the conditions that determine whether any of it actually happens get negotiated, delayed, or decided without the people most affected in the room.
Josefien brings the infrastructure planning perspective to this panel — what it means to work at the intersection of energy systems, spatial planning and public interests, and how grid operators like Alliander navigate the collision between investment decisions, scarce space and the need for collective action.
Built around the young professionals in the audience — the generation that will operate in the energy system these decisions are creating right now.
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Rutger Oorsprong
Erik van Straaten