Are we going to experience this winter that the power is temporarily out of the electricity at home? Network manager Enexis sounds the bell about this. Gijs Verhoeven, researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology, sees the call from Enexis primarily as a warning. “This is the utmost means to be able to protect the net.”
Verhoeven does see the threatening danger of overcrowded current networks. Last year he and colleague Bart van der Holst investigated how people (financially) can be stimulated to spread their power consumption over the day. This can help to burden the energy grid less.
“There are locations where the power grid is really starting to get full. Then they may have to take action, for example by temporarily closing the power. Consumers will also be hit by that,” says Verhoeven.
Dealing more consciously with power consumption
According to him, the warning from Enexis must ensure that consumers deal more consciously with their power consumption. “It is a first awareness. Keep in mind that closing can be made of electricity, in the most extreme case. It is also a call to people to think along – then it might not have to happen.”
Big profit
For example, people can use or charge their electrical appliances at times when the power consumption is low – outside peak hours. “Do not immediately put the electric car on the charger when you get home from work. Let the washing machine run in the evening or at night. There is still a lot to be gained there, with a big impact on the net,” says Verhoeven.
The solution, the weighting of the energy network, will take a while. “In the meantime we will have to do something,” says Verhoeven. “Shifting the energy consumption of one household has no major influence in itself. But if more households do, there will be shifts that can reduce the overload of the net.”
Four different power rates
A financial incentive must move consumers to use the energy network at other times. Outgoing Minister Hermans of Klimaat sees a possible solution in four different power rates per day.
The NOS Writes that the plan is that the four rates will be introduced in 2028. People with a dynamic power contract already have experience with different rates during the day. For them, even a different flow rate applies every hour every hour, depending on the expected supply of sun and wind energy and demand.
In the winter, with little sun, electricity is often the cheapest in the middle of the night. In the summer, with a lot of sun, usually around noon.
Moments
Furthermore, prices are often higher in the morning hours, when many people wake up and go to work – between around 7 a.m. and 10 a.m.
Also at the end of the afternoon and the beginning of the evening, the rates, when people get home, charge electric cars, cooking or turning on the heat pump to heat the house. That is roughly between 5 pm and 9 pm.
The government is still consulting with the network operators about the precise interpretation of the four time blocks with different rates. It is likely that there will be two more expensive blocks for the morning and evening, and two cheaper blocks for during the day and at night.