Negative electricity price is bothering entrepreneurs

Agricultural entrepreneurs with solar panels or wind turbines on their farms sometimes have a negative energy price during this period, especially at weekends. In the event of a negative electricity price, RVO does not provide an SDE+ subsidy for the so-called feed-in of renewable electricity.

This has everything to do with the corona crisis and of course, if you have solar panels, the extremely sunny weather of the last few weeks also helps. Due to the measures to contain the corona virus, much less energy is used than normal. In the form of electricity, gas, oil or any other form. At the same time, the production of solar energy is much higher than usual due to the exceptionally steady and very sunny weather. It is raining weather records, but also solar energy yield records.

As a result, last weekend, for example, the electricity price was negative for a continuous block of time of six hours or longer. This has already led to some indignant reactions from agricultural entrepreneurs on social media, who frown that they "have to pay money" for generating green electricity. 

Earlier this year in February, the production of wind energy was already exceptionally high, causing the electricity price to become negative. That was a first a few months ago.

From January 1, 2015
In the event of a negative electricity price, RVO does not provide an SDE+ subsidy for the so-called infeed of renewable electricity. Small projects (projects with a nominal power per connection to the electricity grid of less than 500 kW) and projects for which the application was submitted before 1 December 2015 are excluded from this provision. For wind energy projects, the limit is 3 MW per connection to the electricity grid.

Exceptional situation
The new SDE+ provision on the negative electricity price does not mean that financing solar panels has become unattractive, says Hans van Cleef, energy economist at ABN Amro. "This is an exceptional situation, which we expected, but not so soon." The bank assumes that the negative electricity price will remain an exception, measured over the period in which solar panels are financed, usually 15 years. Van Cleef: “Technically, solar panels can last up to 25 years. The phenomenon of 'negative electricity price' does not make financing solar panels more difficult."

Budgeting a more negative scenario
When asked, RVO recommends calculating whether a project is also profitable if the production of solar and wind energy is slightly lower each year, supplemented with an extra year of subsidy (the so-called 16th year). RVO also emphasizes that the negative energy price in the Netherlands for more than 6 consecutive hours is an exceptional situation that only occurred for the first time this year.

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