Dutch cabinet postpones phasing out solar energy netting scheme again – IT Pro – News

The phasing out of the netting scheme that applies to solar panels in the Netherlands will be postponed again. The previous cabinet postponed the phase-out and the current Minister of Climate and Energy, Rob Jetten, now states that the planned phase-out start on 1 January 2023 is ‘not feasible’.

In a letter to the House of Representatives writes Minister Jetten: “As a result of the delay in the handling of the controversial statement, the effective date of 1 January 2023 for the phasing out of the netting scheme as included in the bill is no longer feasible”. The minister intends to inform the House as soon as possible, at the latest sometime in the second quarter of this year, about when the phasing out could start. The government is also considering making changes to the bill.

Until now, the government’s intention was to phase out the netting scheme in increments of nine percent per year, starting on January 1, 2023. In 2030, one may still net 28 percent of the energy and in 2031 that percentage will fall to zero percent. The starting moment will be pushed further into the future, but with it the end moment, so the pace of phasing out will remain the same at nine percent per year, it seems.

Netting is a form of subsidy from the government, intended to encourage the Netherlands to cover roofs with solar panels. In the roughly ten years in which netting is possible, it is photo voltaic">pvpower per inhabitant increased from 7W in 2011 to almost 600W in 2020. This has surpassed Germany and Belgium.

One of the drawbacks of the netting scheme is that, partly because of this, so much power is generated in the neighborhoods that the local infrastructure cannot handle it. At peak times, i.e. during the day on sunny days, when owners are not at home to use energy, there is overcapacity and feed-in is increasingly switched off.

The netting arrangement is now difficult to abolish, as evidenced by the many postponements and the controversial statement. Many households now use it: in 2023 the government expects to spend 410 million euros on it in the form of lost taxes on electrical energy. The scheme now shortens the payback period to about seven years, according to Milieu Centraal. That makes the scheme politically unpopular to abolish among owners of the panels.

Tweakers has an opinion about netting backstory written, which also includes the current scenario of postponement. Also looked in another backstory to home batteries and what its value is in relation to netting.

–