The importance of climate change is getting increasingly more attention from all stakeholders in urban development. This results in the energy network operator being increasingly involved in the partnerships needed to realize new urban area development projects. Current projects have been experiencing delays due to the electricity grid not being able to comply with the new increased energy needs. The energy network operator is not used to intensively collaborate in urban development projects. This results in collaboration barriers, resulting in hold-up problems in urban development projects. The ‘boundary spanners’ (the people operating at the boundaries of their organization) experience these collaboration barriers with other stakeholders. With the use of interviews and questionnaires, the experienced collaboration barriers will be identified with the use of the Delphi method. This will enable the prioritization of time and resources. Combined with practical recommendations, the problem of energy network congestion can hopefully be tackled.