Good Energy News

Two good news in one day. First, my energy provider tells me:

Levert u meer terug dan u van het net afneemt, dan betalen we u vanaf die datum 16.8 eurocent per kWh. De oude vergoeding was 7 eurocent per kWh.

“If you push energy into the grid, we now pay you 16.8 Eurocent per kWh. The old payment was 7.0 Eurocent per kWh.”

The other good news is that it is very likely that the existing “Salderingsregeling” may be continued until 2025. At least that seems to be the plan, says milieu centraal .

The “Salderingsregeling” says that for power that I feed back into the grid I can draw back without cost. You can imagine that as using the grid as a battery with infinite capacity, or as the counter going backwards. There are a few limits and regulations, but more on that below.

The original plan was to end the Salderingsregeling at the End of ‘22. This was then extended to the End of ‘23, and it seems that it is now being discussed to extend it to the End of ‘24.

So when I am consuming 5000 kWh from the grid and push 2000 kWh into the grid, I will have to pay only 3000 kWh. It does not matter that I actually withdrew 4000 kWh from the grid, because some consumption was at night, or because I overshot the production of my panels at a certain point in time. Only the net Saldo matters, the difference between production and consumption over the year.

This also works the other way around: If I am producing 5000 kWh and consume only 2000 kWh from the grid, my Saldo will be 3000 kWh in my favor. For that I am supposed to get a “reasonable compensation”, says the law. At the same time the goverment made noises that basically said that “80% of the purchase price seem to be reasonable”. Apparently this prompts my energy provider to make the above change, offering 75% of the purchase price to preempt regulation. You know what, I am actually somewhat okay with that.

Now the entire specific regulation seems to be not fixed, yet, and the actual handling and pricing is still subject to change. We will see how this will actually play out, but right now the change has been entirely pro consumer.

It is also clear that we will not keep the Salderingsregeling ad infinitum. The original plan was to gradually switch it from 100% Saldering to 9% less each year. That still seems to be the case, so we expect to see this table to be implemented:

Instead of a gradual decline we see a big initial jump from 100% to 64%. That’s because the original plan was to decrease by 9% starting 2022, and while the end deadline was kept, the initial full Saldering was kept alive for several years.

At the same time the government says it expects a reasonable compensation for the other power that is no longer part of the Salderingsregeling, and that’s the above 80% (or now 75% number).

It is a bit unclear how that now will work out: Will there be two kinds of tariff for power pushed to the grid that is part of the Saldering, and a second tariff for the other power that is not part of the Saldering, or one tariff for everything.

We will see how that works out soon.