22 de agosto de 2024|General

Grid fees and end of net metering for PV system owners in the Netherlands

The Netherlands is regulating its rapidly growing solar energy market by approving grid fees for owners of rooftop solar panel systems.

The Netherlands is not the only country where PV system owners face changes in grid feed-in regulations. In many European countries, including Austria, the power grid cannot handle the increasing feed-ins of renewable energies. As a result, in some cases, such as in Austria, grid feed-in is prohibited, while in the Netherlands, prosumers even have to pay to feed their surplus power into the grid.

The grid fees imposed by several major energy suppliers on PV system owners are legitimated by the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM). These fees range from €100 to €697 per year, depending on the size of the installed system. Known as “terugleverkosten” in Dutch, the grid fees apply to PV system owners who feed surplus electricity back into the grid. The charges are meant to cover the costs that energy suppliers face, such as higher purchasing costs, imbalance costs, and net metering expenses.

End of net metering expected

The existing net metering scheme, that gives customers credit for the energy they generate and send back to the grid, is becoming harder for the country to manage. As more Dutch residents have installed solar panels, the supply of surplus electricity during sunny periods has increased dramatically, leading to grid congestion issues. Therefore, the Dutch government plans to phase out this scheme by the end of 2026.

The amount of electricity fed into the grid during the sunny months could then be used by customers for free in the winter—that was the previous rule.

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These challenges are only expected to intensify: Solar capacity is growing rapidly in the Netherlands – reaching 19 GW in 2023, a 450% increase over the last five years.

While net metering played a key role in promoting solar energy, critics believe that it now provides too much financial support, regarding the fact that solar panel prices have dropped in recent years. Simultaneously, the Dutch power grid is experiencing bottlenecks, which makes increasing feed-ins counterproductive – explain the grid fees. Solar panel owners need to explore alternative solutions for managing their surplus energy in the future to avoid paying for feeding their generated energy in the grid.

Maximizing self-consumption with battery storage and a heating element

One solution is to switch to PV self-consumption. A hot water storage tank can absorb more PV energy than a conventional battery storage system. With a linearly controlled heating element, surplus solar power can be efficiently converted into heat, significantly increasing the self-consumption rate.

Combining this with battery storage can further boost self-consumption. This reduces strain on the power grids and decreases reliance on external energy providers. Thanks to the open system architecture of my-PV, existing battery storage systems can be easily integrated into a photovoltaic heating solution. This not only reduces grid strain but also increases self-consumption and helps lower grid fees.

Avoid grid fees with off-grid solutions

To completely avoid grid fees, you can use all the electricity you generate without feeding it into the grid. By using modules without inverters as an off-grid solution, the PV system is disconnected from the grid, allowing all generated energy to be fully utilized in the household for hot water.

The photovoltaic hot water preparation device ELWA, a linearly controlled heating element for photovoltaic energy, converts the DC power from the PV modules directly into heat without any losses. With the new DC Power Manager SOL•THOR, this process becomes even simpler: the heating element is controlled separately, allowing existing heating elements in storage tanks to be managed by the SOL•THOR. The SOL•THOR regulates the heating element continuously based on the output from the modules, which are connected directly to the device via MC4 connectors.

Since neither device feeds electricity into the grid, no permits or complicated administrative procedures are required—and there are no costs for feeding power into the public grid!