This year 13 billion euros is available for the subsidy scheme for sustainable energy, of which the second registration round closes on Monday afternoon at 5 p.m. These amounts are much higher than in previous years, because the cabinet had previously released an extra 6 billion. In addition, due to the higher expected CO2 price, the budget this year has been increased by 2 billion euros in order to offer more projects a chance.
Entrepreneurs can submit an application in five different rounds until 6 October. With each phase, more money is available for each CO2 emission saved, so that the most efficient projects can be the first to raise money. Which parties will receive a subsidy will only be announced later; the figures for 2021 have only recently been known.
The actual payment of subsidy is lower than the allocated amounts, because projects do not go ahead or because of the higher electricity price less subsidy is needed. Because of this effect, there is always money on the shelf and it has been decided to increase the budget.
The subsidy amounts are spread over several years, so that the national government pays out much lower amounts per year. In 2020, the last year for which all figures are now known, 1.6 billion euros in subsidy has been paid out. The largest part goes to projects generating sustainable electricity (915 million). Projects in which heat is generated in a sustainable way, such as with bio-fermentation, also receive a lot of subsidy (650 million).
If you zoom in on various techniques, it turns out that most of the subsidy goes to solar energy. Biomass is losing popularity.
How much money will actually be paid out in the coming years is still uncertain. In view of the current high electricity prices, sustainable projects will be profitable more quickly and will probably require much less subsidy than budgeted.