After Vandebron previously introduced a feed-in tariff for customers with solar panels, Budget Energy is now also following suit. In return, new customers with a permanent contract receive free electricity for part of the year.
Budget Energy, the fourth-largest energy supplier in the country with 800,000 customers, immediately charges new customers a tariff for feed-in. Existing customers will have to pay extra from March. How much depends on how much power they put on the grid. The energy company expects that it will be between 5 and 20 euros extra for the average customer.
Free electricity part of the year
In return for the feed-in tariff, there is free electricity for part of the year. Customers who sign a new permanent contract will soon receive free electricity on Saturday and Sunday afternoons between twelve and five from April to August. They only have to pay the energy tax of 13 cents per kilowatt hour.
The company does this because there is often a surplus of sustainably generated electricity at that time, which is hardly used. By giving it away for free, Budget Energy wants to encourage customers to adjust their behavior and, for example, turn on the washing machine or charge their electric car in the afternoon.
Overloaded grid and unfair distribution
“There is an abundance of green energy that we are not using and our grid is becoming overloaded, resulting in tens of billions in investments,” says director Caroline Princen about the introduction of the feed-in tariff.
Budget Energie also believes, like Vandebron before, that the distribution of costs between customers with and without solar panels should be fairer. Due to the netting scheme, energy suppliers now have to pay the same rate for all supplied electricity as for the supplied electricity.
Because they get all that power back when supply is high, those kilowatt hours yield much less than what the supplier has to pay for them. They include this imbalance in the rate for all customers.
End of netting arrangement
This imbalance has been talked about for some time. Abolishing the netting scheme (owners of solar panels are no longer allowed to deduct their generation from their consumption, but receive a fixed amount for their returned electricity) is one of the ways to bring the ratios back into balance. The abolition received a narrow majority in the House of Representatives and is now up for review by the Senate.
Vandebron did not want to wait for this last year and now Budget Energy is also following suit. “The scheme has done a fantastic job, the number of solar panels has grown explosively. The Netherlands is virtually the world leader. But the arrangement has now become counterproductive,” says director Princen. “It ensures that insufficient use is made of the moments when there is an abundance of green energy.”