Homes in Zeeland are receiving money for temporally shutting off their solar panels

Homeowners in Tholen, Sint-Phillipsland, and Schouwen-Duiveland in Zeeland are being offered payment for temporarily turning their solar panels off. This is a trial by grid operator Stedin in collaboration with energy supplier Eneco.

"Handling energy more smartly helps prevent malfunctions and voltage problems, as well as overloading the electricity grid. The aim of this new approach, which is a first for the Netherlands, is to learn how willing households are to help relieve the power grid," Stedin reported. Eneco customers have been approached for voluntary participation in the Smart Switching trial.

The number of homes with solar panels in Zeeland has increased sharply. This has led to more energy being generated than is being used at certain moments, which overloads the electricity grid. If the trial succeeds on this occasion, the grid operator wants to spread it out more.

In the trial, people were asked to temporarily turn their solar panels off manually. "If this works well, then we also want to look at automatic solutions for customers who give permission for it," said Stedin. The total compensation is calculated based on how often the household disconnects.

The additional costs of the payments to solar panel owners who participate will eventually be divided among "all customers with a power connection", a Stedin spokesperson said. This means that people without solar panels will also see this reflected in their energy bill. "It has to come from somewhere, we are going to see how we can do this as well as possible. But ultimately everyone pays these kinds of costs via their energy bill", the spokesperson said. She could not say exactly how much higher the costs will be.

Although the grid operators are making record-level investments, the amount of sustainable energy is growing quicker than the grids can handle. This leads to electricity grids becoming overloaded, a problem that happens frequently on sunny days with a lot of wind.

"Now that the number of homeowners with solar panels is increasing and consumers are generating a lot of sustainable energy, this test will examine whether they too can play a role in limiting the pressure on the electricity grid on sunny days. And we will also look into what a good form of cooperation between homes and energy parties is," said Stedin.