Senate to scrap plan to phase out solar power buy-back scheme
The Senate will scrap Climate Minister Rob Jetten’s plan to phase out the netting arrangement that allows solar panel users to deduct the power they supply to the electricity grid from the power they purchase. The two largest factions in the Senate, BBB and GroenLinks-PvdA, believe the incentive scheme should remain in place, and a majority of Senators will vote against the bill on Tuesday afternoon, NOS reports.
GroenLinks-PvdA called it crazy to abolish the incentive plan just when solar panels are becoming accessible to low-income households. The BBB sees Jetten’s plan to phase out the scheme as a “pure tax measure” with which the government wants to raise 2.8 billion euros in the coming years. According to the BBB, the government should first do something about the increasingly limited capacity of the power grid before turning its attention to the netting scheme.
Jetten wants to phase out the subsidy because solar panels are now cheap enough to be a good investment even without government support. The scheme also costs the treasury hundreds of millions of euros per year in lost tax revenue. Parliament previously approved his plan.
The Climate and Energy Minister tried to convince the Senators to support his bill last week by promising to help housing corporations accelerate the rollout of solar panels for rental homes - something GroenLinks-PvdA has advocated for. But the promise was not enough to sway the left-wing group.
Energy companies have started charging a “feed-in fee” of up to 270 euros for solar panel owners. The netting scheme costs energy companies a lot, because solar panel owners can use the extra energy they generate in the summer - when energy prices are low and there is a surplus of supply - for free in the gloomier winter months when energy is much more expensive.
Jetten told the the television program Radar on Monday that he could not guarantee that energy companies would abolish the feed-in fee if the netting scheme disappears.
