The grid connection offer, line by line
Three weeks after the meeting of stop 02, the grid operator's offer arrives: four pages and one table. The developer reads it line by line, because every line changes the business case or the timeline.
The offer is composed in the structure German distribution grid operators use; the amounts are illustrative, the rules behind them are real.
The questionWhat does each line of the offer mean, and which lines decide what the hub costs and when it opens?
Guess firstWhich single number in the offer drives both the one-off contribution and the yearly grid fees?RevealHide
The agreed capacity in kilowatts. The construction cost contribution is priced per kilowatt, and so is the capacity part of the grid fees. Lowering the peak with load management or a battery lowers both.
What you are looking at
In Germany, a grid operator must connect anyone who asks, at conditions that are appropriate, non-discriminatory and transparent, and it must state those conditions; the offer is where it does. EU law adds that the operator cooperates with whoever builds charge points on a non-discriminatory basis. The result is a document with a fixed structure: the technical lines say where and how the hub connects, the commercial lines what it pays once and every year.
Select the numbered lines to see what each one decides.
Eighteen lines, in the order the grid operator sends them: the technical part first, then money, then time and conditions.
- Line 1The clock starts
Capacity is reserved only once the connection agreement is signed. After three months the offer lapses, with its prices and its place in the queue.
A composed offer in the structure German distribution grid operators use; the prices are illustrative. The duty to connect and to state the conditions follows § 17 EnWG, the two zones of the grid fees § 17 StromNEV, the contribution the Bundesnetzagentur's position paper of 2024, the customer station VDE-AR-N 4110.
once, for the upstream grid
once, to the property boundary
once, not in the offer
every year, at 10% utilisation
Computed from the offer. The one-off items are about 445 k EUR; the grid fees are about 6.8 ct per kWh at 10% utilisation, a cost that stop 08 folded into the energy price.
Where the numbers come from
Three rules stand behind the commercial lines:
- The contribution. Above low voltage, German grid operators may ask for a one-off contribution to the upstream grid, computed under the capacity price model of the Bundesnetzagentur's position paper: the agreed capacity times a capacity price of the network level. It is not refunded if the hub later uses less.
- The . The regulation on grid charges sets a capacity price per kilowatt of the year's peak and an energy price per kilowatt-hour, in two zones divided at 2,500 a year. A hub at 10% sits far below that line, so it pays the low capacity price and the high energy price.
- The station. The customer's station must meet the technical connection rules for , which set protection, reactive power and the proof the customer has to deliver before energisation.
Why the agreed capacity is the lever
Every per-kilowatt line follows the agreed capacity, and the capacity part of the grid fees follows the highest quarter hour of the year. A site that caps its peak pays less twice. That is why load management and a battery beside the chargers are grid-fee decisions as much as technical ones: 1,000 kW agreed instead of 1,200 kW would cut the contribution by 19,480 EUR and the capacity charge by 4,622 EUR a year.
What the offer does not decide
The energy price is not in it: the hub buys its electricity from a supplier under a separate contract (stop 03), and the grid fees come on top of that price. The building permit is the authority's, the station is the customer's, and whether the hub ever pays back is the subject of stop 08. The offer decides one thing above all: that there is a date, and a capacity, to plan around.
Check your understanding
3 questions. Answer all of them to complete this stop. Each answer explains itself.
The offer prices the connection charge and the capacity part of the grid fees per kilowatt. What lowers both?
Both items follow the agreed kilowatts. Capping the peak is the one decision that lowers the one-off and the yearly cost.
The hub uses 1.05 GWh a year with a peak of 1,200 kW. Which grid fee zone applies?
1,051,200 kWh divided by 1,200 kW is 876 hours of use, far below 2,500. The low capacity price and the high energy price apply.
Which cost of the connection is not paid to the grid operator at all?
The station is the customer's own work, tendered separately. Contribution, cable and metering go to the grid operator.
- Utilisation How intensively a charger is used, for example in sessions or energy per day. EV charging fundamentals, stop 07 Glossary
- Medium voltage The grid level of roughly 10 to 20 kV between the high-voltage network and the 400-volt street grid; large charging hubs usually connect here, with their own transformer. Stop 02 Glossary
- Grid fee What a grid operator charges for the use of its grid; it is part of the electricity price and, for larger connections, often also depends on the highest power drawn. Business models, stop 01 Glossary
- Hours of use A year's energy divided by its highest quarter-hour power, in hours; German grid fees switch between two price structures at 2,500 hours. Glossary
- Gesetze im Internet: Energiewirtschaftsgesetz (EnWG), § 17 Netzanschluss. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/enwg_2005/__17.html. Checked 11 Oct 2026.
- EUR-Lex: Directive (EU) 2019/944 on common rules for the internal market for electricity, Article 33. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/944/oj. Checked 09 Oct 2026. © European Union, reused under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.
- Gesetze im Internet: Energiewirtschaftsgesetz (EnWG), § 17 Netzanschluss. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/enwg_2005/__17.html. Checked 11 Oct 2026.
- Gesetze im Internet: Stromnetzentgeltverordnung (StromNEV), § 17 Ermittlung der Netzentgelte. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stromnev/__17.html. Checked 11 Oct 2026.
- Bundesnetzagentur: Positionspapier zur Erhebung von Baukostenzuschüssen, Beschlusskammer 8, 20 November 2024. https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Beschlusskammern/BK08/BK8_06_Netzentgelte/70_BKZ/BK8_BKZ.html. Checked 11 Oct 2026.
- VDE FNN: Technische Anschlussregeln Mittelspannung (VDE-AR-N 4110). https://www.vde.com/de/fnn/themen/tar/tar-mittelspannung-vde-ar-n-4110. Checked 11 Oct 2026.
- Bundesnetzagentur: Positionspapier zur Erhebung von Baukostenzuschüssen, Beschlusskammer 8, 20 November 2024. https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Beschlusskammern/BK08/BK8_06_Netzentgelte/70_BKZ/BK8_BKZ.html. Checked 11 Oct 2026.
- Gesetze im Internet: Stromnetzentgeltverordnung (StromNEV), § 17 Ermittlung der Netzentgelte. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stromnev/__17.html. Checked 11 Oct 2026.
- VDE FNN: Technische Anschlussregeln Mittelspannung (VDE-AR-N 4110). https://www.vde.com/de/fnn/themen/tar/tar-mittelspannung-vde-ar-n-4110. Checked 11 Oct 2026.