Plenty of focus on energy storage in Electricity grid debate

Last Thursday a debate took place in the Lower House about the problems on the Electricity Grid. In preparation for this debate, members of the Lower House organized a round table discussion to gather input for this debate. Maarten van den Heuvel, on behalf of Energy Storage NL, reported the most revelant points for the Dutch energy storage sector. And with success, as energy storage was named by many MPs as an important technology to solve the problems on the electricity grid.

CDA twelve-point plan 'Scarcity of Electricity Grids'

CDA MP Bontenbal presented the 12 point plan "Scarcity Electricity Grids" during the debate to address the problems with the full power grid. The plan includes an important plea for energy storage. See the key points below:

Also enable cable pooling for the combination of a battery and a wind or solar farm: The combination of a wind and solar farm with energy storage is not yet possible. If 2 properties belong to different legal entities, cable pooling is not a possibility. This barrier must be removed.

Instruct grid operators to provide insight into the real-time utilization of their electricity grids within 5 years: grid operators should actively measure their transformer stations with sensors and disclose the data to the market. That way, companies working with batteries, for example, can come up with solutions to solve the scarcity on the power grid.

As the central government, give more attention to renewable gases and renewable heat in subsidizing renewable energy sources: given the tightness of electricity grids and the limits looming in implementation, it makes sense to shift some of the state's incentives to renewable heat and gases.

If the producer tariff is not introduced, also exclude batteries from paying transportation charges and thus consider them as generators rather than consumers: batteries that are given a place in the power grid to solve scarcity on the power grid are considered consumers. And so they are also charged transportation costs. This does not happen in other countries. If batteries help prevent grid congestion and contribute to grid balancing, then it is justified to treat them in the same way as generation facilities.

Encourage solar farms and wind farms combined with battery storage through the SDE++: By subsidizing only or mainly solar meadows and wind farms that opt for the combination with battery storage, the use of the connection to the electricity grid can be optimized. This means, for example, that only solar meadows with a connection capacity of 50 percent of the maximum capacity will still receive SDE++ subsidy.

VVD and CU 'Opgewekt Opeslagen' action plan

VVD MP Erkens and CU MP Grinwis came in the same debate with a plea for home batteries and neighborhood batteries in which they ask, among other things, for a boost subsidy of 30% on the purchase price of home and neighborhood batteries. They also call attention to recycling and safety of batteries.

Read here the entire action plan back.