Millions of households will soon manage their own power plant. With the arrival of powerful batteries and self-generated electricity, the end of the old energy companies is near. Especially if plug-in cars are allowed to serve as home batteries, this will save households hundreds of euros per year.
Millions of households will soon manage their own power plant. With the arrival of powerful batteries and self-generated electricity, the end of the old energy companies is near. Especially if plug-in cars are allowed to serve as home batteries, this will save households hundreds of euros per year.
“The traditional energy companies are taking on a different role, consumers are taking much more control,” notes Jasper van den Driest, the new CEO of energy supplier Vandebron, a sales platform for purely Dutch green energy. “That can happen quickly with all the new technology,” says the former CEO of mechanic network Guidion and maintenance service GetBikeService for electronic transport.
According to the director, the subsidy that has made solar panels a widespread success in recent years will shift to home batteries. This will allow residents to retain their own cheaply generated electricity for a longer period of time and distribute it to washing machines, refrigerators and electric cars. Which itself will also serve as a home battery.
Battery life
The Hague politicians have not provided clarity for the time being as to whether this netting arrangement can remain. “That increased the uncertainty among customers,” says Van den Driest. Many solar panel suppliers and installers suffered financial losses last summer. “Even without netting, solar panels remain a good investment,” he says, “no energy source is that cheap. The Netherlands is still netting, but the subsidy is disappearing around us.”
Batteries now have a storage capacity of a few hours at most. New generations of heavy batteries can hold electricity for longer. The Norwegian Otovo will offer home batteries in subscription form. However, research agencies CE Delft and Witteveen+Bos strongly advise the government in a new study to make ‘no subsidy’ available for home and neighborhood batteries. These are still far too pricey to subsidize. In the Netherlands, a home battery costs between 750 and 1000 euros per kilowatt hour (kWh). To calculate how large the battery should be, multiply each kilowatt peak (kWp) of the solar panel installation by 1 to 1.5 kWh.
Minister Jetten (Climate and Energy) therefore refused last year, after research by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, to include them in the SDE++ subsidy package for consumers and companies. Jetten did promise to promote implementation in other ways.
Flight
Batteries will follow the path taken by solar panels, electric cars and heat pumps, says Van den Driest of the company with 190,000 customers: more and more sales, increasingly cheaper. “The payback period must be less than ten years. Abroad, neighborhood batteries are offered when purchasing solar panels, although these are subsidized. With falling costs, they will drop in price and implementation will be rapid.”
China, the main supplier of solar panels, has already announced that it will phase out its subsidies on solar cells. Beijing shifts billions in subsidies to powerful batteries. “This means that the introduction will take off, and the subsidy can then be removed again after a few years. But you have to be honest about the transition, it will come in fits and starts,” Van den Driest outlines.
He calls battery cars highly underestimated as an intermediate step: if they can both store power from panels and serve as a battery for cooking or washing, use will increase significantly. “Not only the forerunners but also ordinary households will determine when they generate and consume electricity,” he says.
The Netherlands has countless solutions, but the dunkelflaute – no sun, no wind – means that there cannot be continuous green energy. Vandebron therefore also supplies gas to customers.
WiFi
Van den Driest: “There is increasingly smarter software that is also included in household appliances and automatically starts consuming green energy at the cheapest time. New washing machines and kitchen appliances have WiFi as standard, on which an app searches for optimal consumption. With dynamic power contracts, it is already standard that users look for the cheapest point,” he says. “If the energy price becomes negative more often due to the large supply – 300 hours last year – and you supply your electricity to the grid, you will get your money back. All this demonstrably reduces your costs, by several hundred euros per year, and also your CO2 consumption. People see that.”
Connecting all equipment together with software and arranging this for thousands of customers will be a job, but Vandebron and other producers have already come a long way in this regard, he says.
‘Necessary’
Vandebron reported last year in De Telegraaf as the first electricity seller to ask its customers for money for the return of their panel electricity. Many customers, 40 percent have solar panels, canceled their contracts. “It was necessary after all. Other energy companies are now doing it too. Customers can offset the electricity from solar panels against their consumption via the netting scheme. Energy companies pay that, a significant cost item,” he says.
70 percent of the population is now very concerned about the consequences of climate change. That is confirmation that sustainability has become apolitical
“The remaining 60 percent of our customers without panels contributed to this payment, out of solidarity. They actually paid a fine without benefiting. Now their rate is about 20 percent lower. We lost about a thousand customers, but we have now recovered that number. Also because our prices have fallen.”
Van den Driest advises that the netting arrangement be abolished quickly and clearly. “Better sooner than later, it will happen one day. Consumers are now reluctant due to the uncertainty. But politicians are now also holding companies back from introducing new energy technology that accelerates sustainability.”
Half of the electricity is sustainable
A right-wing cabinet with PVV as the driving force, averse to green subsidies and sustainability plans, can no longer stop that movement, he says very firmly. “No, half of all electricity is already generated sustainably. That train has long since left. This will increase more and more in the coming years. About 70 percent of the population is now very concerned about the consequences of climate change. That is confirmation that sustainability has become apolitical,” says Van den Driest.
“And if you don’t do it for the environment, but green energy saves you hundreds of euros per year, then that is a realistic alternative for many households. Electrification will continue even if there were zero environmental benefits. Purely on economic merits, your wallet. Then that Dutch mentality comes into play.”