TenneT CEO and Chairman of the Board of Management, Mel Kroon, will resign in the second half of 2018. TenneT’s Supervisory Board has already started the search for his successor, while Kroon will continue to fulfil his role until this process is completed.
Aad Veenman , chairman of the Supervisory Board of TenneT: “”TenneT is much indebted to Mel Kroon, who has always strongly advocated an integrated North West European Market and has steered the company towards a position of a leading European Transmission System Operator with many interconnections with neighbouring countries. It was Mel who initiated a highly successful strategy based on three pillars: strengthening the high-voltage grid, building new interconnection capacity and integrating the Northwest European electricity market.”
“Recently he unfolded a vison for the North Sea Wind Power Hub, a long term solution for the large scale exploitation of wind power in the North Sea, which is needed to achieve the 2050 CO2 emission targets in Europe. Mel has become one of the most influential and visionary leaders in the European energy sector,” Veenman said.
Mel Kroon was appointed as CEO and Chairman of TenneT’s Board of Directors in 2002. The company stated that under Kroon’s leadership it has developed into a leading European high-voltage grid operator supplying electricity to its 41 million end-users. In the past 20 years, TenneT’s asset value has increased from EUR 500 million to over EUR 20 billion.
Mel Kroon said: “It has been, and it still is, a privilege and pleasure to work for TenneT. In the 20th anniversary year of TenneT, it seems a good moment to pass on the helm to a new leader. TenneT has a great future ahead, facing challenges in the further integration of the European electricity markets, the ongoing digitization of the electricity system and the expansion of the infrastructure needed to cope with the vast amounts of sustainable electricity. I am happy that the Supervisory Board is taking sufficient time to find my successor and secure a smooth transition.”
Among important events in TenneT’s history, including the acquisition of the 110kV and 150kV grids from the Dutch regional grid operators in 2007 and the acquisition of the German grid operator transpower in 2010, is also the official designation of TenneT as the offshore grid operator in the Netherlands in 2016, with the task of developing a high-voltage grid along the North Sea coast with an intended capacity of 3.5 GW in 2023.