Business energy contracts in the Netherlands: what to check

A Dutch business energy contract is, in most cases, an ordinary commercial contract on the supplier’s terms. Almost all statutory protection under the Energy Act (Energiewet) stops once your connection is larger than 3 x 80 ampere for electricity or 40 m³(n) per hour for gas; only micro-enterprises keep part of it. Below we explain the framework in force in 2026, the parties you really contract with and the clauses that most often lead to disputes.

Does the size of your connection decide which rules apply?

Yes. Dutch energy law distinguishes first between connections, not between consumers and companies. Under article 1.1 of the Energy Act (Energiewet), a small connection (kleine aansluiting) is an electricity connection of up to and including 3 x 80 ampere, or a gas connection of up to 40 m³(n) per hour. Anything larger places you almost entirely outside the regulated retail regime.

A shop on a small connection keeps statutory rights: contract information, protection against disconnection and supervision of tariffs by the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (Autoriteit Consument en Markt, ACM). On a large connection prices are freely negotiated, there is no model contract and nobody tests the supply price for reasonableness.

What if you are a micro-enterprise?

You keep part of the protection. Article 1.1 Energiewet defines a micro-enterprise (micro-onderneming) as a business with fewer than ten employees and an annual turnover or balance sheet total of no more than EUR 2 million. Under article 2.10 Energiewet, a micro-enterprise may annul a contract that does not meet the statutory information requirements. Under article 2.15 Energiewet, a supplier may only charge it a termination fee when it ends a fixed-term contract early. Most international companies buying energy here are neither micro-enterprises nor small-connection customers. Their position rests on the contract alone.

Who are you actually contracting with?

With several parties at once. A Dutch business energy arrangement consists of structurally separate relationships, each with its own terms.

• The supplier (leverancier) sells the commodity. This is the only contract in the set that is genuinely open to negotiation.
• The grid operator (netbeheerder) owns the physical connection and transports the energy. You cannot choose it: it follows your location. The connection and transport agreement is a separate contract on regulated terms and regulated tariffs, and you cannot negotiate it in any meaningful way.
• The balancing responsible party (programmaverantwoordelijke) submits energy programmes and is responsible for deviations between forecast and actual offtake. Usually the supplier takes on this role. It can be split off, but the imbalance exposure then moves with it.
• The metering company (meetbedrijf). For large connections, metering is a competitive service. You contract it with a recognised metering company, and it is charged separately.

So you will receive at least two invoices, often three or four. Grid charges on a large connection are substantial, depend on contracted capacity and are outside the supplier’s control, so budget each cost stream separately.

Which law governs energy supply in the Netherlands now?

The Energiewet, the Act of 11 December 2024 that replaced the Electricity Act 1998 (Elektriciteitswet 1998) and the Gas Act (Gaswet). The version in force from 1 January 2026 is the framework you work with. It is supplemented by the Energy Decree (Energiebesluit), the Energy Regulation (Energieregeling) and the ACM’s energy codes, and read together with the underlying EU market rules.

Three features matter for business customers. First, Article 2.17 Energiewet requires a supply licence only for supply to small connections, so the creditworthiness of a supplier to large users is your own due diligence question. Second, Article 2.7 Energiewet gives every end user periodic invoices free of cost, but the more detailed protections are built around small-connection customers and micro-enterprises. Third, the ACM supervises suppliers and grid operators but does not police the price charged to a large business customer.

Which contract types exist, and who carries the price risk?

The commercial labels differ between suppliers; the risk allocation does not. The table below shows where the risk sits in each structure.

Is a dynamic contract a cheap contract?

Not necessarily. With a dynamic contract you agree to buy at whatever the market does, with the supplier’s margin as the fee. Every hedging decision, and every consequence of not hedging, is yours. For a manufacturer with a concentrated daytime load, that is a treasury exposure rather than a procurement choice.

What happens if your consumption differs from the forecast?

The contract decides who pays, and it usually favours the supplier. A fixed price is quoted against a forecast annual volume and consumption pattern, and the supplier hedges against that forecast:

• Volume tolerance bands. The fixed price holds only while offtake stays within a percentage band around the forecast. Outside it, volume is repriced at market, often asymmetrically. You then pay the worse of the market price and the contract price either way.
• Take-or-pay. A minimum volume is payable whether or not you consume it. This is common in industrial gas supply, and it is unforgiving if a plant closes mid-term.
• Profile or shape risk. Even at the right annual volume, changing when you consume alters the cost of the hedge. Moving production to nights, adding a battery or installing rooftop solar can each breach a shape assumption you did not know you had given.

An example to illustrate: a company signs a three-year fixed-price contract based on two production lines and closes one line in year two. Offtake falls below the tolerance band, and the supplier settles the shortfall at market price plus a take-or-pay charge for the gas, although the fixed price on the invoice has not changed.

Who pays for imbalance costs?

Normally the supplier, within limits the contract sets. Every connection must be covered by a balancing responsible party. Where the supplier holds that role, it nominates your offtake and absorbs ordinary deviations, which are priced into your tariff.

Watch for clauses that pass imbalance cost on to you when a deviation exceeds a threshold or is attributable to your side. Examples are a generation unit tripping, a large flexible load switched on without notice, or a failure to supply forecast data. Sites with on-site generation, batteries or fleet charging are most exposed. If you take balancing responsibility yourself, you carry the imbalance prices directly, and those prices are volatile by design.

What can you control in the connection and transport agreement?

Mainly your contracted capacity. The grid contract is a different animal: its terms and tariffs are regulated, the grid operator is a local monopolist, and there is nothing meaningful to negotiate.

On a large connection, much of the grid bill is a capacity charge based on contracted transport capacity, plus a standing charge and metering charges, rather than a charge per kilowatt hour. Over-contracting is a permanent, invisible cost. Under-contracting is worse. Exceeding your contracted capacity typically triggers a recalculation or surcharge, and repeated exceedance can lead to the capacity being reset upward. Review your peak demand every year. Treat any new load, such as a heat pump, a chiller or a charging hub, as a capacity question before it is a supply question.

What is specific to the Netherlands in 2026?

Grid congestion. It is widespread, so a new or increased connection can face a long wait. At the same time, congestion management arrangements may pay you to shift load away from peak hours.

Compensation for long outages is fixed in the grid codes, and it differs per connection category. For a small connection, grid operators such as Liander pay EUR 35 when you are without electricity or gas for more than four consecutive hours, plus EUR 20 for every further four hours. Other rules and higher amounts apply to large connections. Check the full compensation schedule your own grid operator publishes, because your connection category decides the figure.

How do termination, switching and early termination charges work?

On the contract’s terms, with very little statutory help. A fixed-term business supply contract runs to its end date, and many renew automatically for a further fixed period unless you give notice within a defined window.

Article 2.15 Energiewet limits termination fees for households and micro-enterprises to early termination of a fixed-term contract. A large business customer gets none of that: its charge is whatever the contract says, and may be a full mark-to-market claim for the remaining term. Negotiate the formula, not only the headline price, and secure a right to see the calculation.

What happens if your supplier fails?

That depends on your connection. The energy crisis put several Dutch suppliers out of business. Small-connection customers sit behind a statutory safety net. Under article 2.24 Energiewet, a licence holder that foresees it can no longer supply its small-connection customers must report this directly to the transmission system operator and the ACM. Under article 2.25 Energiewet, the ACM then designates one or more licence holders that continue the supply, and the contracts transfer without the customer’s consent.

A large business customer has no equivalent guarantee. If your supplier defaults, you must find a replacement at short notice, in the same market conditions that caused the default. Deposits and prepayments you made become ordinary claims in the insolvency.

Reduce this risk before signing:

• check the supplier’s financial standing and group structure;
• consider asking for a parent company guarantee in your favour;
• avoid placing all your volume with a thinly capitalised supplier;
• identify a standby arrangement, such as a fallback supply agreement or step-in rights.

Which clauses on force majeure, change in law and price revision should you check?

Force majeure. Dutch law recognises non-attributable failure (overmacht), but the contract defines the events. Suppliers commonly extend the definition to wholesale market disruption, default by an upstream counterparty or the unavailability of hedging. That is far broader than the general law would give them. Check whether the consequence is suspension, price adjustment or termination, and whether you may exit if a suspension continues.

Change in law and change in cost. Passing on new levies, taxes and network charges is defensible. Passing on anything the supplier chooses to call “regulatory” is not. Limit the clause to charges imposed by a public authority, make it symmetrical so that reductions also reach you, and require evidence.

Hardship and price revision. Renegotiation clauses and unilateral revision clauses have become common in longer-term industrial contracts. If the supplier may revise the price, you need a matching right to reject the revision and terminate without charge. Otherwise a fixed price is only fixed while the supplier finds it convenient. The general rule on unforeseen circumstances in Article 6:258 of the Dutch Civil Code (Burgerlijk Wetboek, BW) sets a demanding threshold, and a drafted mechanism in the contract usually takes its place.

What does a green energy contract actually give you?

A certificate arrangement. The electrons reaching your site are the same as anyone else’s. Your supply counts as renewable because guarantees of origin (garanties van oorsprong) have been cancelled on your behalf in the national register for these certificates.

If your group makes public sustainability claims, specify the technology, country of production and vintage year of the certificates, and require evidence of cancellation. If your objective is new renewable capacity, a power purchase agreement linked to a named asset is the right instrument, not a green tariff.

What security can a supplier ask for?

Usually a bank guarantee, a parent company guarantee, a deposit or an advance payment. A newly incorporated Dutch subsidiary without trading history should expect such a request.

Security should be capped, time-limited and released as your payment history builds. Many contracts let the supplier demand extra security mid-term, with suspension of supply as the sanction; define the trigger, cap the amount and require notice and a cure period.

Where can you go with a dispute?

That depends on who the dispute is with. Under article 5.4 Energiewet, the ACM handles a dispute between a party and a system operator at the request of that party. This route is open to businesses and is useful for disputes about the connection, capacity and grid tariffs.

It is not a route for a dispute with your supplier about price, volume or termination. For that, you can turn to the Energy Business Disputes Committee (Geschillencommissie Energie Zakelijk) or the ordinary civil courts. The committee handles complaints from businesses against energy suppliers about disconnection, supply or tariffs for gas, electricity and heat, and certain complaints against grid operators. It only deals with companies affiliated with it, and it cannot handle disputes where the financial interest exceeds EUR 50,000. Given the sums in an industrial supply contract, most serious disputes therefore end up at the district court (rechtbank).

Which general terms apply to your contract?

Often the supplier’s, unless you act. Dutch suppliers use industry conditions for business customers, supplemented by their own terms.

If your purchase order refers to your own conditions, you have a battle of forms. Under Article 6:225(3) BW the terms referred to first prevail, unless the other party expressly rejects them, so an express rejection in your order counts.

Ask for the general conditions before you sign. Annulment of terms that were not made available in good time (Article 6:233(b) BW) is only open to a company with fewer than 50 employees that does not publish annual accounts (Article 6:235 BW). Also read the priority clause, which decides which document prevails in a conflict.

What should you check as the business customer?

On a large connection the contract, not the Energiewet, decides your position. Check these points with the draft in front of you:

• Whether your connection is above 3 x 80 ampere or 40 m³(n) per hour, and whether you qualify as a micro-enterprise under Article 1.1 Energiewet.
• The total cost, including grid, metering and balancing charges, not only the quoted commodity price.
• The volume tolerance band and any take-or-pay clause against a possible closure or efficiency programme.
• The notice window for automatic renewal and the formula for the early termination charge.
• Whether change in law, hardship and price revision clauses are symmetrical and give you an exit right.
• The cap and release of any security you give, and an express rejection of the supplier’s general conditions if you want your own to apply.

What should you check as the supplier?

As supplier you carry the hedging risk and, for small connections, the licence duties of Article 2.17 Energiewet. Check these points:

• Whether the customer’s connection or size brings it under the small-connection or micro-enterprise rules.
• Whether your contract information meets the Energiewet requirements, as a micro-enterprise can annul a contract that does not (Article 2.10 Energiewet).
• Whether your volume, imbalance and termination clauses are clear enough to survive a dispute about interpretation.
• Whether your general conditions were made available before the contract was concluded.
• Whether you have adequate security for a customer without trading history.

What can we do for you with your energy contract?

We advise businesses and energy companies on supply, grid and power purchase agreements under Dutch law. Concretely:

• We review the draft supply contract and its general conditions before you sign.
• We negotiate the volume band, take-or-pay, termination and price revision clauses.
• We calculate and test an early termination charge or mark-to-market claim.
• We review the connection and transport agreement and file a dispute with the ACM under Article 5.4 Energiewet.
• We conduct proceedings before the Geschillencommissie Energie Zakelijk or the district court.

Summary

• Above 3 x 80 ampere for electricity or 40 m³(n) per hour for gas, you are largely outside Dutch statutory protection; the contract decides.
• You deal with several parties: supplier, grid operator, balancing responsible party and metering company. Budget each cost stream separately.
• Most disputes start with volume bands, take-or-pay, early termination charges and one-sided price revision clauses. Negotiate the formulas, not only the price.
• Large connections have no statutory fallback if the supplier fails; arrange security of supply by contract.
• Grid disputes can go to the ACM; supplier disputes go to the Geschillencommissie Energie Zakelijk (up to EUR 50,000, affiliated suppliers only) or the courts.

Frequently asked questions