Battery storage in the Netherlands: permits, grid and contracts

A battery project in the Netherlands needs six legal workstreams in place: energy regulation, a transport contract, a permit, land rights, construction and service contracts, and a trading agreement. The trading agreement, often negotiated last, determines most of the return, and in a congested area the transport contract decides whether the project can start at all.

Batteries have become the standard answer to grid congestion (netcongestie): a battery creates room behind an existing connection, makes a rigid transport contract flexible and earns from short-term price differences. In the Brainport Eindhoven region, industrial demand growth and congestion have arrived together.

Why is there a commercial case for storage now?

Four drivers explain the interest in batteries. None of them requires a price forecast.

Congestion. Large parts of the grid are declared congested for offtake, for feed-in, or both. Where a congestion area is declared, the grid operator must carry out a congestion investigation and publish a congestion report. This follows from the congestion management rules in the Systeemcode elektriciteit 2026, the code that replaced the Netcode elektriciteit when the Energy Act (Energiewet) took effect on 1 January 2026. That report determines whether flexible capacity can be contracted and on what terms. Since 1 July 2026 the ACM’s prioritisation framework (prioriteringskader) also applies to small connections, with a transition period until 1 January 2027. Priority does not produce a connection. It only gives you a better place in the queue.

Price spreads. A battery earns on the difference between the price at which it charges and the price at which it discharges in the day-ahead and intraday markets. That spread varies, and no adviser should promise you a figure. What matters legally is who captures the spread, under which contract, and who carries the risk if the battery is unavailable.

Imbalance and ancillary services. Batteries suit the balancing products procured by the transmission system operator, TenneT (FCR, aFRR, mFRR). They can also offer redispatch through a congestion service provider, and take part in passive imbalance trading. Each of these routes needs a counterparty with market access and balance responsibility (programmaverantwoordelijkheid).

The capacity tariff. For a large connection, much of the network cost follows contracted transport capacity in kW rather than the kWh you consume. A battery that shaves peaks reduces the capacity you must buy. A battery on its own large connection, however, pays that same capacity-based tariff. That is why tariff design has been the sector’s central complaint.

How does the Energiewet treat a battery?

The Energiewet recognises energy storage as an activity in its own right. It also gives a statutory position to the active customer, so a company that stores and sells alongside its main business keeps its customer rights.

Why is a battery hard to classify?

Because a battery operator both takes electricity from the grid and feeds it back. When charging, it looks like an end user. When discharging, it looks like a producer, or a supplier if the electricity reaches a third party.

As an end user, the operator bears energy tax and network tariffs on what it takes. As a producer, different code obligations, registration duties and connection conditions follow. As a supplier, a licence question arises under Chapter 2 of the Energiewet.

What does the Energiewet do about it?

The Energiewet, in force since 1 January 2026, responds in two ways. First, it recognises energy storage as a distinct activity, so the storage facility and its operator can be identified as such.

Second, it gives the active customer (actieve afnemer) a statutory position: a customer who, alongside consuming, also generates, stores, sells or shares electricity, without that becoming its principal commercial activity. An industrial user with a battery behind its own meter therefore keeps its customer rights when it trades flexibility, and does not automatically become a regulated market party. A storage operator is entitled to connection and transport on the same non-discriminatory terms as any other network user.

Do you need a licence or a registration?

A supply licence only matters if you supply small consumers. Registration applies to almost every battery system.

• Supply licence. A licence is needed to supply small consumers. Supply to large consumers does not require one. A battery that sells commercially will normally do so through a supplier, aggregator or optimiser rather than in its own name.
• Registration. Battery systems from 0.8 kW upwards must be registered, classified by capacity: type A from 0.8 kW to below 1 MW, type B from 1 MW to below 50 MW, type C from 50 MW to below 60 MW, and type D at 60 MW and above. Systems connected to the high-voltage grid count as type D whatever their size.

Which transport contract can you get in a congested area?

In a congestion area you will usually not get a firm, unrestricted transport contract. What you can get is a contract in which you give up firmness in return for capacity now, a discount, or a fee.

The ACM introduced alternative transport rights by code decision of 16 July 2024, published on 19 July 2024 and effective from 1 April 2025. From 1 October 2025 the transmission system operator has been obliged to offer the time-duration transport right. The capacity limitation product and the role of congestion service provider date from the ACM’s congestion management code decision of 24 May 2022.

What should you negotiate in these contracts?

The contracts are alike in structure but differ in detail. Check what triggers a call-off, the notice you receive, the consequences of failing to respond, whether penalties are capped, how long the commitment runs, and whether it ends when the congestion does.

Capacity you promise to a grid operator must also fit with what you promise under the optimiser agreement; selling the same flexibility twice is a common structural error. A regional operator is only obliged to offer the group transport agreement from 1 January 2027, and each operator uses its own product names. Ask your grid operator which forms it offers before you design the project around one.

Can a battery share a connection through cable pooling?

Yes. Cable pooling means combining installations behind one connection, and the ACM allows batteries to take part in the same way as solar and wind.

Classically, cable pooling combines wind and solar, whose output profiles do not peak at the same time. Increasingly, a battery is added to either. The ACM applies conditions: a connection of at least 100 kVA, at most four installations identified as separate WOZ objects, and installations located close together. Once the grid operator has agreed the arrangement, the shared connection must be notified to the ACM. The ACM bases this on the Energiewet and the Energiebesluit.

You notify on the ACM’s own form, attaching the joint connection and transport agreement, an overview of the cadastral plots and the contract between the sharing parties. The ACM registers the notification, but parties cannot derive rights from it.

What must the cable pooling contract cover?

Permission is the easy half. The contract between the sharing parties carries the risk, and it must deal with:

• how connection and transport costs, and the capacity itself, are divided, and what happens when one party grows;
• the curtailment order: whose output is cut first when combined output would exceed the contracted capacity, and how that party is compensated;
• who holds the connection and is therefore the grid operator’s counterparty, and how the others are protected if that party fails or is sold;
• who accounts for energy tax on which volumes, and how metering data lets each party settle with its own supplier;
• duration, transfer, default and exit: a battery with a fifteen-year life that shares a connection with a solar park whose subsidy ends earlier needs an answer for that mismatch.

A model cable pooling agreement published by Invest-NL is a reasonable starting point, but only that. The curtailment and cost-allocation clauses carry the value, so draft them for your own project.

Is stored electricity taxed twice?

For large connections, no longer in principle: the operator of a storage facility behind a large-consumer connection can be recognised for energy tax on its own footing. For small connections the double charge has not been resolved.

Double energy tax. Electricity taken from the grid attracts energy tax (energiebelasting). If the same electricity is taxed again when it is discharged and delivered on, each kilowatt hour bears the levy twice and the business case collapses. For large connections the position is now workable. The Belastingdienst identifies, among those liable for energy tax, an organisational unit that operates an energy storage facility behind a large-consumer connection, consumes electricity and meets further conditions. The storage operator is thus recognised on its own footing rather than the levy simply falling twice.

The mechanism was introduced in the Environmental Taxes Act (Wet belastingen op milieugrondslag) through the 2022 Tax Plan. It treats the organisational unit that operates the storage facility as itself liable, subject to conditions set by order in council. The electricity taken into the facility is then not also taxed as a supply to an end user. This is not a general exemption for batteries behind the meter. Whether your facility meets the conditions is a question for the Belastingdienst, and worth settling before you sign off the business case.

For small connections the problem remains, because electricity from different sources mixes inside the battery, and no straightforward fix is in prospect. Separately, the netting scheme (salderingsregeling) for small consumers ends on 1 January 2027. That changes the arithmetic of a domestic battery, but not of an industrial project.

How do network tariffs affect a battery?

Because the transport tariff for a large connection follows contracted capacity in kW, a battery pays for capacity it uses intensively but briefly. The alternative transport rights described above are the regulator’s answer: give up firmness, pay less. For now the tariff outcome depends on which transport right you choose. You make that choice when you apply for the connection, long before financial close.

Which permits does a battery need, and what about fire safety?

A grid-scale battery usually needs an environment and planning permit (omgevingsvergunning), and the safety region’s advice can decide whether it goes ahead. Involve the municipality and the safety region before the layout is fixed.

Which permit procedure applies?

A grid-scale battery is both a construction project and an environmental one. Depending on the site and the municipal environment plan (omgevingsplan), you may need a permit for the building activity, for an activity the omgevingsplan makes subject to a permit, or for an activity that departs from the plan. The regular procedure takes eight weeks, with a possible extension of six weeks. A departure from the plan can take longer, for example where the extended procedure of six months applies.

Which environmental rules apply?

The environmental rules are in transition. Storing large quantities of lithium batteries is not yet designated as a specific environmental activity in the Environmental Activities Decree (Besluit activiteiten leefomgeving, Bal). Designation is expected later this decade.

Until then, a battery either falls under the Bal because it functionally supports a designated activity, or it is governed by the omgevingsplan, including the transitional rules (the “bruidsschat”) with a specific duty of care for environmentally harmful activities. Check the status of the planned Bal amendment when you apply.

What role does PGS 37 play?

PGS 37-1 is the guidance for the safe storage of electricity in energy storage systems. PGS 37-2 covers the storage of lithium-containing energy carriers. PGS 37-1 is guidance rather than a statute, but in practice it is the standard against which a design is assessed. The RIVM calculation method for external safety around lithium-containing energy carriers is used alongside it.

The practical reality is blunt: the safety region’s advice can stop a project. Safety regions may require more than the guidance does, such as access roads, turning circles, separation distances and water supply. They are often involved late, once the layout is fixed. Bring them and the competent authority in before the site plan is frozen, and treat their conditions as a design input.

How do you secure the land?

With a registered right of superficies (opstalrecht). A lease alone is not enough, because the installation would then belong to the landowner.

A battery sits on land for fifteen years or more, and its assets are bolted to it. Under Dutch law what is built on land generally accedes to the land. A lease alone therefore leaves the operator owning nothing it can finance. The answer is an opstalrecht under article 5:101 of the Dutch Civil Code (Burgerlijk Wetboek), registered in the land register. It separates ownership of the installation from ownership of the ground and allows a mortgage over the installation.

The deed should deal with duration and renewal, the annual fee (retributie), transferability and mortgageability, access and cable routes, and removal and restoration at the end. Where the land is leased, secure the consents of the owner and any mortgagee before the EPC contract is signed.

Which contracts decide the return?

Four contracts: the EPC contract, the long-term service agreement, the optimiser agreement and the insurance programme. The optimiser agreement determines revenue; the service agreement determines whether the battery keeps performing.

EPC contract. This is usually turnkey: one point of responsibility, defined completion tests, liquidated damages for delay and performance shortfall, a retention or a bank guarantee, and a defects liability period. Grid connection milestones lie outside the contractor’s control and need their own regime. A contractor cannot fairly carry a grid operator’s delay.

Long-term service agreement. The LTSA is where a battery is won or lost. Its core is guaranteed capacity over time. Cells degrade, so the contract must state the capacity warranted in each year, how it is measured, how augmentation is paid for, and what follows if the figure is missed. Availability guarantees, response times, spare parts, software updates, cyber security and supplier insolvency belong here too. Degradation clauses drafted around a use profile that the optimiser is not bound to respect are a recurring source of dispute.

Optimiser or route-to-market agreement. This contract determines revenue. Models run from tolling, where the offtaker pays a fixed fee for the right to dispatch, through floor-plus-share and index-linked structures, to fully merchant arrangements in which the owner takes market risk. The negotiation points are consistent: what the optimiser may do with the asset, cycle limits and their interaction with the LTSA warranty, who bears imbalance costs, how revenues are calculated and audited, term and termination, and what happens when a grid operator’s call-off overrides a trade. Where the battery serves both a congestion contract and the market, write down which of the two has priority.

Insurance. Fire risk drives the programme. Insurers ask about cell chemistry, spacing, compartmentation, detection and suppression, distance to third-party property and compliance with PGS 37-1. Arrange cover in parallel with the permit. An insurer’s requirements and the safety region’s are not identical, and reconciling them late is expensive. Business interruption and liability for damage to neighbouring property deserve as much attention as physical damage.

Is there a subsidy for battery storage?

Not as a production subsidy: no Dutch scheme pays a production tariff for storage as the SDE++ does for renewable production. Investment and flexibility support does exist.

The SDE++ covers renewable electricity, heat and gas, low-carbon heat and low-carbon production. The 2026 application round runs from 27 October to 26 November 2026. Adding a battery behind a subsidised installation raises a separate question about how subsidised production is metered. A battery behind an SDE++ connection is permitted, provided the subsidised renewable generation is measured by a separate, approved gross production meter (bruto-productiemeter). Charging from the grid then cannot affect the determination of the subsidy.

Other support is available:

• the Energy Investment Allowance (Energie-investeringsaftrek, EIA) gives a tax deduction on qualifying assets, including batteries;
• Flex-e funds flexibility scans, feasibility studies and flexibility measures for organisations with a connection above 3×80 A; applications are open from 6 May to 15 October 2026;
• the DEI+ scheme supports demonstration projects.

What should you check as a project owner?

Start with the connection and work outwards; the transport contract you choose when applying fixes your tariff long before financial close.

• Establish contracted capacity, whether the area is congested and which transport right your grid operator offers.
• Decide whether the battery sits behind the existing connection or takes its own, and model the tariff and energy tax consequences.
• Reconcile the grid operator’s call-off rights with the optimiser’s dispatch rights before you sign either.
• Register the system in its capacity category and meet the municipality and the safety region before the layout is fixed.
• Align the LTSA capacity warranty with the cycle limits in the optimiser agreement.
• Check EIA, Flex-e or SDE++ eligibility before ordering equipment: committing too early can cost you the subsidy.

What should you check as a landowner?

A battery will sit on your land for fifteen years or more. The right of superficies (opstalrecht) under article 5:101 BW fixes your position for that whole period.

• Agree duration, renewal and the annual fee (retributie) in the notarial deed.
• Check whether your own mortgagee must consent to the right of superficies.
• Set access, cable routes and limits on use of the surrounding land.
• Require removal and restoration at the end, backed by a bank guarantee or other security.
• Agree who carries fire risk and liability for damage to your property and neighbouring property.

What can we do for you with battery storage?

We advise on storage projects as energy lawyer for companies, developers and landowners.

• We review the connection and transport offer and the congestion management contract.
• We draft or negotiate the optimiser agreement and the long-term service agreement, with matching cycle limits.
• We prepare the right of superficies and coordinate the notarial deed.
• We draft the cable pooling agreement, including curtailment order and exit.
• We review the EPC contract, including the regime for grid connection delays.
• We support the permit application and the consultation with the safety region.

Summary

• The Energiewet, in force since 1 January 2026, recognises energy storage as a separate activity and protects the active customer who stores and sells alongside its main business.
• In a congested area, the choice between CSC, CBC, TDTR, TBTR and a group transport agreement decides both access and tariff.
• For large connections, a storage operator can avoid double energy tax under conditions; for small connections that problem is not solved.
• Permits, PGS 37-1 and the safety region’s advice shape the design, and an opstalrecht makes the installation financeable.
• The optimiser agreement and the LTSA determine the return, and their cycle limits and warranties must match.

Frequently asked questions