Dutch village Moerdijk marked for demolition to build giant power substation

Moerdijk is being set aside for demolition so the Netherlands can build the electricity infrastructure needed for its energy transition, turning a village of about 1,100 to 1,130 people into land for substations, transformer stations and pipelines.

The site in West Brabant, on the southern shore of the Hollands Diep estuary, is prized because it sits beside ports, motorways and existing overhead power lines. That makes it a strategic corridor for connecting offshore wind and other new electricity supplies to the Dutch grid as the country moves toward using energy from sustainable sources only by 2050. In the wider Powerport regio Moerdijk plan, the indicative spatial demand is 700 hectares. Local reporting says 400 to 500 hectares are needed for the energy works alone, with about 450 hectares coming from the village area if Moerdijk is cleared.

Residents were told on 11 November 2025 that the village may have to disappear, and the information meeting that followed was raw with grief. One resident said, “Deze avond vind ik echt een slachthuis.” Ten days later, the municipal council voted 19 to 3 to back the plan, even as mayor Aart-Jan Moerkerke called it a difficult and painful decision. The municipality has said it wants fair compensation and is trying to avoid Moerdijk becoming a ghost village while people slowly move away.

The timetable now points toward a prolonged dismantling of community life. Local reporting says the village could disappear within ten years, with construction of the new energy stations expected to start in 2028 and finish in 2033. The final political decision is expected in June 2026, when the Rijk and Provincie Noord-Brabant are due to weigh in after a parliamentary roundtable on 5 March 2026. A government decision note dated 29 January 2026 shows the issue is being handled at national level by the Ministries of Infrastructure and Water Management, Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, and the Interior and Kingdom Relations.

The fight over Moerdijk has become a test case for who pays for the energy transition and how much consent communities truly have when land is needed for national priorities. ZLTO and BAJK told parliament the plan is especially painful for farmers and their families because it takes farmland that has been worked for generations. A legal expert has also said residents may still be able to challenge the decision. The pressure on Moerdijk reflects a broader regional pattern that has favored industrial expansion for years, leaving the village facing a future in which the clean-energy system advances, but a community may not survive it.