Solar panels on roofs in Etten-Leur.Image Arie Kievit
So this is a fine for everyone with a lot of solar panels?
Those who have many panels naturally generate a lot, especially if they are relatively new panels. But this is about supplying back solar energy that you do not directly use yourself. So it may also be the case that someone with many panels who always charges his car when the sun shines pays less tax than the neighbor with fewer panels who barely uses electricity during the day. Households with many panels and a heat pump will certainly pay more. In the summer they generate a lot of electricity that they do not use. In the winter, when their pumps are running at full capacity, there is usually hardly any electricity of their own to do that with.
How much money is it exactly?
The scale that Vandebron published Tuesday, starts at 4 euros per month for customers who annually return 4 to 1,000 kilowatt hours. This increases in five steps from 1,000 kilowatt hours to a maximum of 46 euros per month for households that feed back more than 5,000 kilowatt hours annually. The average Vandebron customer with solar panels pays a levy of ‘between 10 and 20 euros’ per month, the company calculates itself.
There is a modest advantage for some of the customers. The money that the company collects from the levies is used to lower the electricity tariff. Vandebron has been one of the most favorable suppliers for electricity since Tuesday. Anyone who purchases more net electricity per year than supplies it back will benefit from this lower rate. In any case, these are customers without solar panels and, to a lesser extent, customers with panels that generate less than they use.
Vandebron emphasizes that having panels remains financially attractive, especially at the current electricity price.
Over by author
Tjerk Gualthérie van Weezel writes for de Volkskrant about energy and the impact of the energy transition on daily life.
Isn’t this a way to get around the balancing rule?
That’s what it comes down to. It is legally established that panel owners are allowed to net their electricity on an annual basis. All the power they generate, they can offset (net off) against the power they consume at less sunny moments. Each kilowatt-hour that you net, therefore yields as much as it costs to purchase a power.
This is an extremely favorable arrangement for customers with solar panels. But energy companies find it unsustainable. In practice, netting costs them a lot of money, which they have to earn back by deducting it from the electricity tariffs that all customers pay. Especially when they have relatively many customers with solar panels, such as Vandebron, those rates are getting higher and they will lose more and more customers without panels. On Tuesday it already appeared that Vandebron was one of the most attractive providers for customers without panels thanks to the new measure.
This year, the House of Representatives has already agreed to gradually phase out net metering from 2025. And also to set a minimum feed-in tariff, so that having panels still remains lucrative. But especially now that the cabinet has fallen, it does not look like the Senate will agree to this in the short term. Vandebron clearly can no longer wait for this and is now introducing a measure that partially cancels the effect of net metering.
Can that just happen?
“There is nothing in the law that prohibits energy companies from doing this,” says the spokesperson for the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM). ‘As long as they are transparent about the rates and don’t make unreasonable margins.’ For the question of whether it is also desirable, he refers to the ministry.
They are not cheering there. ‘Various methods of settling the electricity supplied back do not improve clarity’, says the spokesperson. He refers to the plan for phasing out net metering, which should actually ‘arrange this for everyone at once’. But he cannot say that the cabinet will also do anything to ban the feed-in levy.
A party could possibly go to court to review ACM’s judgment. Logical candidates for this are the Vereniging Eigen Huis and the Consumers’ Association. They are very critical about phasing out net metering and certainly also about Vandebron’s move. “We think this is unreliable towards consumers and not good for the energy transition,” said the spokesperson for the Consumers’ Association. ‘But we first want to talk to Vandebron and the trade association.’
In the meantime, Vandebron calls it ‘the next step’ in the energy transition. How is that possible?
Vandebron is indeed trying to sell the measure as good news as much as possible. And the company also has a point. There are so many solar panels in the Netherlands that an important new development must follow: we must make better use of energy when it is available. By making the return of electricity slightly more expensive, there will be a stronger incentive for consumers to use electricity in a smart way.
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2023-08-15 16:54:09
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