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10 min Reading time In the proposal currently on the table, several important details have been further elaborated compared to the first version. First of all regarding the negative feed-in compensation: according to the bill, the compensation for fed-in electricity may never be negative, meaning that you never have to pay to feed electricity back to the grid. However, a note is placed here: the compensation is 'weighted average over a period of one month'.
Concretely, this means that when you have a dynamic energy contract, the feed-in compensation can indeed be negative at certain moments. This is important to know, because it means that you will want to pause your feed-in (briefly) at those moments. Fortunately, this is usually quite possible with our solar panel systems!
More clarity is also provided about the minimum reasonable compensation for fed-in electricity. This may not be less than 50% of the agreed price for the electricity to be supplied. We are of course talking about the bare electricity price, without energy tax and VAT.
This means that if you pay about 30 cents per kWh soon, the minimum compensation for the fed-in electricity would only be about 8 cents per kWh. That is quite a difference: which is why almost everyone with solar panels will certainly want to have a home battery by then.
There may of course also be energy suppliers who will give a higher compensation than the absolute minimum. In addition, it will also be possible to sell the returned electricity to a different party than the energy supplier from whom you purchase the electricity.
Most signs point to the Senate approving this law, but we don't know for sure. After all, the previous plan (for a gradual phase-out) had also been adopted by the House of Representatives, but was ultimately rejected by the Senate. We are of course keeping a close eye on things and will keep you informed in our newsletters.
The abolition of the net metering scheme means that solar panels would in principle pay back less quickly than before.
But at the same time, solar panels have never been so cheap, while the price of electricity has only been increasing lately! Those who purchase an installation today therefore have just as short a payback period as the pioneers, who realized years ago how smart it is to invest in solar energy.
Moreover, there are now plenty of options to limit feed-in if necessary. Every unshaded piece of roof can be used productively: call or email and we would be happy to see what is possible!
Nowadays many energy suppliers charge costs for feed-in. This only happens if you have a fixed or variable contract. The amount of these feed-in costs and the way they are charged differ per energy supplier.
If you have a dynamic energy contract, no feed-in costs are charged. In this case, the price of electricity (both consumed and fed in) varies from hour to hour.
According to the net metering scheme, your energy supplier is obliged to deduct the electricity you feed back from your consumed electricity in a year. As a customer, you only pay the difference between the two through the annual statement.
If more is fed back in a year than is consumed, you will receive a lower price for this than the price at which the electricity was purchased (the energy supplier can determine this themselves).
The net metering scheme only applies to small consumers. A small consumer has an electricity connection with a maximum current of 3 x 80 Ampere.
Almost all households are small consumers: you probably have a connection of 3 x 25 Ampere or 1 x 40 Ampere at home. Some companies or apartment buildings also have a connection of maximum 3 x 80 Ampere and therefore fall under the net metering scheme.
The net metering scheme will continue to exist until January 1, 2027, after which this scheme will disappear in one go. From then on, the energy supplier will be able to determine how much money they want to pay for your fed-in electricity.
It is possible that there will be a legally determined minimum price. The government calls this a 'reasonable compensation' and it has been agreed that this may never be negative. This means that you will never have to pay to feed back your electricity.
However, this compensation will be considerably lower than the consumption price, making it even more important to consume or store as much of your self-generated electricity as possible.
In the video we explain what the end of the net metering scheme concretely means for households with solar panels, and what you can already take into account now.
At Zonnefabriek we are increasingly getting these kinds of questions. Our technical manager Hessel provides some clarification.
"I understand the question. Here we have an installation from a customer, the green part is the energy that is used directly in the home. The yellow part is all electricity that has been fed back to the grid. Thanks to the net metering scheme, that fed-in electricity is still worth quite a lot of money now, but from January 1 that will be completely different. Then you will get much less for your fed-in electricity, in any case considerably less than what you have to pay for the consumed electricity.
By storing that energy that you would otherwise feed back during the day in a battery and using it again in the evening, that energy is worth some money again. So no, it is not wise to remove the solar panels from the roof or turn them off. Because with that you only make yourself even more dependent on the electricity grid and you fall behind on all developments."
