Dutch grid operators to offer compensation for home batteries that ease evening peaks

Dutch grid operators, including Enexis, Liander, and Stedinbegan, began paying energy suppliers on Monday an availability fee for keeping home batteries, heat pumps and electric vehicle charges. The aim is to discharge or reduce energy consumption during evening peak hours in congested areas, RTL reports. The payments apply only to devices that selected suppliers can control remotely in parts of Gelderland, Flevoland, Utrecht, and the eastern part of Noord-Brabant.

According to a sample calculation, the supplier will receive 270 to 540 euros per home battery per year, depending on the hours of daily availability required. The operators then decide how much to pass on to consumers.

The program targets a known problem: batteries that trade solely on national wholesale prices can worsen local congestion. When national prices are low, suppliers often charge batteries even if a neighborhood is already overloaded.

"Very occasionally the national price is so low that you want to charge, but the grid operators would prefer you not to because your neighborhood is already drawing too much power at that moment. Stijn Walsh from Frank Energie, one of the participating suppliers, told RTL. “We are starting that now with this availability fee.”

Frank Energie said owners of a 10-kilowatt-hour battery with 10 kilowatts of power could receive up to an additional 450 euros a year. The fee runs for four years, from November 2026 through November 2030.

The operators aim to enroll 50,000 to 70,000 households in the short term and ultimately secure 255 megawatts of flexible capacity. Frank Energie told RTL that more than 7,000 devices are already participating, with the number continuing to grow daily.

Home batteries can in principle reduce peaks on the grid, Gilbert de Graaf, director of market services at Liander, confirmed to RTL. But he also agreed that that “depends mainly on how the battery is controlled.” That means that congestion on the local network should always be taken into account.

The Dutch electricity grid has been congested for quite some time. It was reported back in September that there is currently no space on the power grid for hundreds of thousands of newly built homes.