According to Milieu Centraal, about one million Dutch people who bought their solar panels before 2020 have now recouped their investment. According to the knowledge center, this concerns approximately one-third of all solar panel owners in the Netherlands.
According to Milieu Centraal, the netting scheme has ensured that people with solar panels have recouped their investment. Thanks to this scheme, solar panel owners can still offset their generated electricity against what they consume.
Such a scheme is favorable because solar panels generate the most energy when the sun shines and electricity is cheap on the market. If they return that electricity to the grid, that electricity can be offset against consumption at night or in winter. Then the market price is higher.
Most suppliers now also charge feed-in tariffs for the electricity to be offset. You have to pay for the electricity that you generate with your solar panels and feed back into the electricity grid. The time of quick payback seems to be over when the netting scheme stops in 2027 and suppliers can determine the feed-in tariff themselves.
Most energy companies have announced their feed-in tariffs for 2027. These appear to be very low: a net of about 0.25 cents per kilowatt-hour fed in. Depending on your energy supplier, according to the Consumers’ Association, the payback period after 2027 can be a lot longer: about fifteen to twenty years.
Nevertheless, according to Milieu Centraal, solar panels remain a good investment. Consuming your own generated electricity is always cheaper than that from the electricity grid. Moreover, solar panel owners are less dependent on the energy market, where prices can be influenced by, for example, geopolitical unrest.