Starting Jan. 1, Dutch households with solar rooftops will no longer benefit from the net-metering system.
Currently, if residents have solar panels, any extra electricity they generate gets sent to the grid. When it comes to billing, the power company then subtracts what households sent to the grid from what they used. For example, if you generated 1,000 kilowatt-hours and used 1,000, you don't pay for any electricity.
Solar panels can still reduce household energy costs, but after the policy change, getting the most from them may depend less on exporting extra electricity and more on using it at the right time.
What's happening?
This free "storage" deal the Netherlands is experiencing will end. Now, when residents send extra power to the grid, the power company will pay them a small amount for it, but less than what they'd normally pay to buy electricity, instead of it being a 1-for-1 trade.
NL Times, citing NU.nl, reported that energy suppliers and analysts say households with solar panels should start preparing now because the payoff from excess generation is about to look very different.
"Whoever has solar panels will pay more because the net-metering scheme is disappearing," Michiel van der Linden of energy supplier Vandebron told NU.nl. "You will therefore pay energy tax and VAT [value-added tax] on all electricity you consume."
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That does not mean solar panels stop offering savings.
"The advantage does not disappear, but it becomes smaller than it is now," Van der Linden said.
Why does it matter?
A big part of the issue is the low value of exported electricity. For households on fixed and variable contracts, suppliers must still pay at least 50% of the wholesale electricity price through 2030, but feed-in charges can still push the return to under 1 euro cent per kilowatt-hour.
The outlook can be even worse under dynamic contracts. On especially sunny days, wholesale prices may fall to zero or below, so solar electricity not used at home could bring in almost nothing or even result in a negative export value.
That raises the value of immediate self-use. Every kilowatt-hour consumed in the home is one that does not need to be purchased later at taxed retail prices, which is why using a dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, or water heater during sunny hours could be better than waiting until evening.
As a result, timing becomes more important, particularly for people who are away from home during the day and cannot manually shift their electricity use to midday.
What can I do?
For most consumers, the most straightforward response is to move high-energy activities into the hours when their panels are producing the most.
Homes that are empty during the day may need automation to make that work. Timers, smart plugs, and programmable electric vehicle chargers can align electricity use with solar production without requiring someone to be there switching devices on and off.
In practice, experts say midday is likely to become the most valuable period for running major appliances and charging an EV, because each kilowatt-hour used on-site is one less that must be bought from the grid at taxed retail rates.
Experts also recommend checking how a solar installation is configured. If exporting power no longer makes financial sense, some inverters can safely limit output via manufacturer-approved controls, while manually turning systems off is discouraged because it can damage equipment.
Batteries are part of the conversation as well. Research cited by experts suggests that around 5 kilowatt-hours of storage may be practical for many households, although whether that pays off depends heavily on how the home uses electricity and what kind of contract the customer has.
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