The End of Net Metering: A Dutch Homeowner’s Playbook

Salderen is over. A million Dutch households with solar panels are now doing new maths — and the honest answer to “should I add a battery” is: it depends on one number you can look up tonight.

The rule change is simple to state. Until now, every kWh you exported cancelled a kWh you imported — the grid as a free battery. That era ends 1 January 2027. From then on, an exported kWh earns a feed-in rate of a few cents while an imported one still costs retail. The rooftop that paid for itself on netting now earns maybe a third of what it did — unless the electricity is used at home.

We modelled four scenarios for the median Dutch PV household (3,600 kWh consumption, 3,400 kWp array): no action; a 5 kWh retrofit battery; a 10 kWh battery; and a heat-pump-first strategy with a small battery. The variable that decides everything is the household’s self-consumption rate before the battery — and you can read yours off your inverter app in two minutes.

If your self-consumption is already above 45% (you work from home, the washing machine runs at noon), a battery’s marginal gain is modest: payback stretches past ten years at current Dutch prices. If you are at 25–30% — out all day, everything runs in the evening — a 5–10 kWh battery moves you to 55–65% and pays back in six to eight years, faster if your supplier’s feed-in charge is aggressive. Below 25%, usually in homes with electric cooking and an EV, the battery is the easiest yes in home energy.

The warning we have to print: the retrofit wave has attracted the call centres. Our survey found 44% of households who started a battery purchase postponed it after aggressive telemarketing — pressure selling is now the biggest obstacle to the market itself. Any offer that expires tonight is not an offer, it is a tell.

Two Dutch specifics worth knowing. First, the feed-in charges levied by suppliers vary by hundreds of euros a year — switching supplier is a legitimate alternative to a battery for some households, and we publish the comparison. Second, if your inverter is older than eight years, the retrofit conversation should include it: pairing a new battery with a dying inverter is the classic way to pay for two installations.

The checklist: read your self-consumption rate; get your supplier’s post-2027 feed-in terms in writing; size to your evening, not your roof; and benchmark any quote — spreads in the Dutch retrofit market currently exceed €2,000 for equivalent systems.

Method: four scenarios, 15-year cash-flow models, current Dutch retail and feed-in rates. Figures rounded; your household’s answer depends on its own data.