As the energy transition gathered pace, access to the electricity grid could no longer be taken for granted. Businesses wanted to become more sustainable, municipalities wanted to build and consumers installed solar panels, charging stations and heat pumps. But the power grid could no longer keep up with the speed of change.
This resulted in Enexis facing a new challenge: not simply to explain grid congestion, but to help customers, public authorities and partners understand what this new reality asks of everyone. Their relationship with customers changed too: from the service desk that guaranteed a connection to a conversation partner about what is and is not possible within an overstretched grid.
The power grid had always been a utility people could take for granted. You requested capacity and carried on. Grid congestion changed that. To customers, it felt as though their plans to decarbonise, grow or expand had suddenly been put on hold.
Technical explanations alone would create distance. Focusing only on what was not possible would deepen frustration. And sounding too optimistic would underplay the seriousness of the problem.
The real question became: how do you turn a grid at capacity from a story of blame and scarcity into one of shared responsibility?
The breakthrough lay in reframing the power grid. Not as Enexis's invisible infrastructure. Not as a technical constraint imposed on individual customers. But as a shared system that everyone uses and that affects everyone. Something we had collectively lost sight of.
That shifted the story:
From: the power grid as an Enexis utility.
To: the power grid as a shared responsibility.
The central idea became:
My power grid is your power grid.
This thought made grid congestion more personal, easier to understand and more activating. The power grid is not an abstract system hidden behind the meter; it is the shared foundation beneath businesses, neighbourhoods, municipalities, homes, charging stations, factories, schools and hospitals.
How it worked
The narrative gave Enexis a shared language for explaining the new reality. Relationship managers gained a more personal and consistent story for conversations with major business customers. Content and communications had a clear role: make complexity understandable, turn frustration into understanding and offer practical ways forward.
The movement came from shifting individual thinking towards collective awareness.
From: my connection, my expansion, my decarbonisation, your problem.
To: our grid, our problem, our choices, our future.
That is how Enexis became more than the organisation explaining why something could not be done. They became a guide who opened up conversations about collaboration, flexibility and a better use of the grid.
Truman developed, among other things:
• True Story Canvas®
• brand story, B2B manifesto and creative platform
• multi-layered campaign and campaign film
• customer journeys and contact strategy for waiting lists
• customer communications, call scripts and emails
• Nuttige Netzaken explainer format and Samen op het net magazine
• message house, issue house and relationship manager presentation
• proposition development, naming and Flex Team presentation
• visual language and photography for the image library
