Electricity network company Stedin has again asked its customers in Utrecht, Zeeland and parts of Zuid-Holland to reduce their energy usage in the early evening to prevent power outages, the Financieele Dagblad has reported.

The grid is too full, which means there could be power cuts at peak periods, Stedin said this week. It particularly wants people to cut their usage for a couple of hours between 4 pm and 9 pm.

The call to customers is not the first and will not be the last, a Stedin spokesman said, adding that energy bills are set to rise even further.

“If we change our behaviour, we can lay fewer cables, invest less and save millions of euros,” the spokesman told broadcaster NOS.

Stedin has some 2.3 million domestic customers in the affected areas and has invested €1 billion in grid improvements over the past year. Nevertheless, reserve capacity, normally only used during major disruption or maintenance, is increasingly being relied upon to meet peak demand.

Dutch consumers are using more electricity as they switch to electric hobs for cooking and electric systems for heating, as well as electric cars as part of the government-backed transition away from gas.

Last week, government officials said some €195 billion needs to be invested in the electricity grids in the coming years to ensure they continue to function properly.

A year ago, then-energy minister Rob Jetten warned that the growth in the number of heat pumps, electric cars and solar panels could, in a worst-case scenario, lead to problems for 1.5 million households by 2030.

In some parts of the country, businesses have already been told they cannot connect to the grid because of the shortage of capacity.