The Netherlands is becoming increasingly greener. Fortunately, because climate change is the order of the day. In recent years, a lot has been invested in sustainable energy production, such as through solar roofs, solar parks on land, and even solar parks on water.
A lot has also been invested in wind parks, especially at sea.
Solar and wind energy production
These investments have ensured that the Netherlands has almost tripled its solar and wind energy production over the past five years (2018-2022). In 2018, this production amounted to approximately 13.3 TWh and in 2022, approximately 34.4 TWh of solar and wind energy will have been produced.
And Semper Power is far from there yet. The offshore wind capacity must more than double to 21 GW in 2030 and the government has abandoned the subsidy ceiling of 35 TWh in the SDE++. Just as in 2022, the government is again making more subsidy budgets available for 2023. For 2023, this amounts to a subsidy pot of €8 billion.
Congestion
The growth of both the demand for electricity and the decentralized supply is happening so fast
Unfortunately, not everything is hosanna. The growth of all this decentralized, sustainable energy production also poses challenges. Just like the growth of the number of data centers in the Netherlands and the electrification of industry. The growth of both the demand for electricity and the decentralized supply is happening so fast that the grid operators cannot keep up.
As a result, the Netherlands is experiencing many local problems with the electricity network, both for feeding in and for taking out electricity. Congestion, traffic jams on the electricity network. To solve these problems, the grid operators, both the national grid operator TenneT and the regional grid operators such as Stedin, Enexis, and Liander, will be investing billions of euros in the coming years.
Weather
The rapid growth of renewable generation means that both the Dutch energy supply and the (spot) prices of electricity are becoming increasingly dependent on the weather. When the wind is strong, a lot of wind energy is produced, gas-fired power stations can switch off and electricity prices are low and increasingly even negative.
On a beautiful, sunny day, a lot of solar energy is produced, gas-fired power stations can also switch off and prices are also low and increasingly negative. Unfortunately, it also happens more and more often that the local electricity grid cannot handle all that solar power and becomes overloaded. As a result, inverters switch off and a lot of solar energy is lost.
Batteries
Batteries can keep the national grid in balance because they can charge and discharge very quickly
Batteries play an important role in the energy transition. On the one hand, batteries can prevent or even solve local congestion problems. Locally, batteries can prevent sustainable energy production from being lost.
On the other hand, batteries can keep the national grid in balance because they can charge and discharge very quickly. In this way, batteries prevent the use of gas-fired power stations that have always taken on this role in the past.
Price volatility
Batteries currently have the wind in their sails and the operating model looks bright. Thanks to the rapid growth of supply and demand for electricity, price volatility on the spot markets such as day-ahead, intraday, and imbalance have increased steadily. It is precisely this price volatility that has ensured that the revenue model for batteries has improved over the past few years.
Within a day, there are more and more moments when charging can be done very cheaply and discharging can be done at high prices. It is also increasingly common for batteries to be charged and paid for. This is the case when prices are negative.
