Dutch homeowners file suit over 2027 phase-out of net metering
Around 137,000 PV system owners in the Netherlands have joined Salderingsclaim.nl, a legal action seeking compensation from the government for potential losses tied to the planned 2027 closure of the net metering scheme. Dutch law firm DBE Advocaten is supporting the case.
DBE lawyer Oscar van Oorschot told pv magazine that scrapping the net metering scheme would severely disadvantage citizens, calling the government’s actions negligent or potentially unlawful. He added that compensation is necessary to offset the financial impact on households.
“At the moment, a large firm is working on substantiating the legal basis. The bottom line is that we currently have enough confidence in a case to possibly start one,” he said. “However, mass claims in the Netherlands take a very long time, often up to 5 years. So we will need to be patient and we do not expect the government to come to a settlement.“
The law firm said the government plans to compensate affected homeowners at a rate of €0.0025 ($0.0027)/kWh, which it considers insufficient.
“In many cases – for example in the summer – there will be return delivery costs due to overloading of the power grid. So when the sun shines you have to pay, and when the sun does not shine you also have to pay, namely the purchase of expensive electricity,” the firm said on its website. “There are 3 million households that are being disadvantaged and are being faced with enormous costs. In particular, households that have entered into a combination of solar panels with a hybrid heat pump.“
In 2021, Energy Storage NL and Netbeheer Nederland, the Dutch association of electricity and gas network operators, proposed phasing out the net-metering regime alongside a rebate program for storage systems.
They said this approach could accelerate the commercial viability of battery technologies in the Dutch market by 2024. Rapid solar capacity growth has strained the grid, they noted, with grid bottlenecks becoming a critical issue, particularly in the low-voltage network.