Solar panel owners getting much less for ushing power back onto the grid

Owners of solar panels are receiving less and less money for the excess electricity they feed back into the grid. The average feed-in fee for households with solar panels has almost halved in one year, Overstappen.nl noted.

According to the comparison website, the average compensation in the market this month is only 4.84 cents per kilowatt hour. A year earlier, the average was 8.48 cents. There are also suppliers where the feed-in compensation has disappeared completely or has been reduced to 1 cent.

Energy suppliers incur costs from customers with solar panels through the netting arrangement, which makes it possible to deduct excess generated electricity that solar panels supply to the electricity grid from their own consumption at other times of the year. People with solar panels 'pay' for expensive electricity at times of high demand and low supply. In contrast, solar panels often supply electricity back when there is a lot of electricity available, and prices are low.

There was already a bill in The Hague to reduce the netting scheme. But that was voted down by the Senate earlier this year. Since then, energy companies have not only reduced the compensation, but many companies have also started charging special costs for feeding power back into the grid.

This also means that people take longer to earn back their investment in solar panels. According to energy expert Tom Schlagwein of Overstappen.nl, home batteries are becoming increasingly attractive.

"You kill two birds with one stone: on the one hand, you avoid the low feed-in tariff, and on the other hand, you use the power yourself, so you don't pay a consumption rate," says Schlagwein. "In addition, the supplier and grid operator are also helped relieve the power grid. Several energy suppliers recently started a campaign to encourage consumers to use more of the generated energy themselves."