Peak-hour power costs more from 2029. The more you run on electricity, the more you pay
The ACM wants the grid tariff for households to depend on when and how much electricity you use. Six in ten households come out ahead. A large home with a heat pump and an electric car pays hundreds of euros more.
Regulator ACM wants households to pay a grid tariff from 2029 that depends on the time at which they use electricity. Power at peak hours becomes more expensive, power at off-peak hours cheaper. NOS, NU.nl, de Volkskrant and De Telegraaf reported the proposal on Thursday. It concerns only the fee for transporting electricity over the grid, roughly a third of the electricity bill; the supply price and taxes do not change. Today a household pays a fixed amount of around €360 a year to the grid operator. Under the proposal about a third stays fixed, around €120, and the other two thirds depend on how much electricity you use and when. There will be four price levels and five time blocks a day. In winter, electricity is most expensive between 4 p.m. and 11 p.m., in summer between 7 p.m. and midnight. These amounts are indications based on this year’s costs. Anyone with solar panels may actually benefit in summer: on sunny afternoons, using the grid becomes cheap.
The ACM expects about 60 percent of households to come out ahead. A small apartment pays €100 to €200 less per year. Those who run a lot on electricity come out worse: a detached house with a heat pump and an electric car pays €300 to €450 more per year, even if the residents shift their use as well as they can. De Volkskrant pointed out that it is precisely large homes that have already gone green that get the bill. That clashes with Wednesday’s cabinet plan to make the hybrid heat pump the standard from 2029. With the new tariffs the ACM wants to reduce grid congestion: the power grid fills up mainly at the moments when everyone cooks, charges and heats at once. Anyone who charges their car at night, or runs the washing machine during the day when the sun is shining, can save money. In recent years grid operators have had to make tens of thousands of businesses and new housing developments wait for a connection. According to the ACM, spreading out use can prevent some of those expensive expansions, and in time lower costs for everyone. Energy suppliers will have to build the new tariffs into their contracts; a smart meter is needed for that. It is still a proposal. The ACM will decide later, and the exact tariffs for 2029 will only be set at the end of 2028.