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Subsidy reduction for solar PV due to cost reductions and size increase

04/07/2017

On 4 July 2017 the Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs informed Parliament on the status of the subsidy application round for the production of renewable energy (the SDE+ subsidy) that took place earlier this year and on the second SDE+ application round that will open this autumn.

In the first SDE+ application round of 2017, that took place in March, 4,673 SDE+ applications were submitted. A large majority of these applications consists of solar projects. Most applications have been processed. On 28 June 880 applications were still outstanding. It is expected that these applications will be processed this month.

A second SDE+ application round will take place from 3 until 26 October 2017. The total budget made available for this application round is EUR 6 billion (equaling the spring budget). In this application round the base amount for solar PV ( ≥ 15 kWp, plus large-scale grid connection) will be reduced from EUR 0.125/kWh to EUR 0.117/kWh. According to the Minister, this reduction is due to rapid cost reductions, in combination with an increase in project size.

It is furthermore announced that for small scale solar PV (less than 1 MW) the development period will be reduced from 3 years to 1.5 year. The reason for this reduction is that it appeared that many small scale projects that obtained SDE+ subsidy were not realized.

In his letter the Minister also briefly touches upon the proposal for the recast of the Renewable Energy Directive, indicating that the Netherlands has expressed concerns against the fact that under the proposed directive guarantees of origin may nog longer be attributed to subsidized renewable producers. Instead, such guarantees of origin will be auctioned by the government and the revenues will be used to promote renewable energy. The Minister indicates that he will timely inform Parliament upon the introduction of such auctioning obligation, in which case the relevant revisions will only apply to subsidy applications that are submitted after such notification.

Authors

Portrait ofCecilia Weijden
Cecilia van der Weijden
Partner
Amsterdam
Luurt Wildeboer
Dominique van Voorst tot Voorst
Iris Kieft
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