Dutch net metering ends in 2027: what does it mean?

What exactly changes?

Net metering means your energy supplier offsets the electricity you export against the electricity you buy. If you export 2,000 kWh in summer and buy 2,000 kWh in winter, you pay nothing on balance. You use the grid as a free battery.

The Dutch Senate adopted the law ending this on 17 December 2024. There is no phase-out: you can offset in full up to and including 31 December 2026, and not at all from 1 January 2027. Purchases and exports are then billed separately.

What do you still get for exported electricity?

• A minimum compensation. Until 2030 your supplier must pay at least 50% of the bare supply rate: the electricity price without energy tax and VAT. After that the legal minimum lapses.
• Feed-in costs remain allowed. Suppliers may pass on the costs they incur for exported electricity. The regulator ACM supervises this.
• A few cents are left net. According to comparison sites that is roughly 3 to 4 cents per kWh at large suppliers (autumn 2026). The calculator uses €0.035 by default; enter the amounts from your own contract.
• Dynamic contract: you receive the market price of that hour. On sunny afternoons it is low and sometimes negative.

What does the end of net metering cost per year?

The table compares electricity costs with and without net metering, without a battery, at an electricity price of €0.30 per kWh and €0.035 net per exported kWh. Fixed charges and any feed-in costs in 2026 are left out.

The loss lies in the gap between what you pay and what you get: every kWh you export and buy back later costs you about €0.265. The more you export, the bigger the blow.

What can you do?

1. Shift consumption to the daytime. Running the washing machine, dishwasher, boiler and car charger when the sun shines costs nothing and earns as much per shifted kWh as a battery. Milieu Centraal advises starting here.
2. Compare your contract. The net feed-in compensation differs per supplier. Look at compensation and feed-in costs together.
3. Consider a home battery. It shifts solar power from the afternoon to the evening, but not from summer to winter. A battery therefore only makes up part of the loss.

Does a home battery make up for the end of net metering?

Partly. For the average household a 5 kWh battery raises the share of solar power used at home from 31% to 64%. That saves €242 a year, over a third of the extra costs. The rest arises in winter, when there is too little sun to fill the battery.

Whether that is worth the purchase depends mainly on the price of the battery. Read more about the payback period or run the numbers for your own home.

And after 2030?

Then the minimum feed-in compensation lapses and the market decides what you get. If the net compensation falls to half a cent per kWh, the same battery saves €276 a year instead of €242. A battery then becomes more valuable, but nobody knows how tariffs will develop.