Batteries have become the standard answer to a Dutch problem: the grid is full, and a company that wants to grow or electrify a process is told to wait. A battery creates room behind an existing connection, makes a rigid transport contract flexible, and earns from short-term price differences. It also carries a crowded legal file: energy regulation, a transport contract, an environmental permit, land rights, construction and service contracts, and a trading agreement that quietly determines most of the return. This article sets out those workstreams, including for Brainport Eindhoven, where industrial demand growth and congestion have arrived together.
Why storage has a commercial case now
Four drivers explain the interest; none 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 under the congestion management rules in the Systeemcode elektriciteit 2026, the code the ACM adopted on 5 February 2026 to replace the Netcode elektriciteit under the Energiewet; that report determines whether flexible capacity can be contracted and on what terms. Since 1 July 2026 the ACM’s prioritisation framework also applies to small connections, with a transition to 1 January 2027; priority does not produce a connection, only 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 a figure. What matters legally is who captures it, under which contract, and who carries the risk of unavailability.
Imbalance and ancillary services. Batteries suit the balancing products procured by the transmission system operator (FCR, aFRR, mFRR), redispatch through a congestion service provider, and passive imbalance trading — each of which needs a counterparty with market access and programme responsibility.
The capacity tariff. For a large connection much of the network cost follows contracted transport capacity in kW rather than kWh consumed. A battery that shaves peaks reduces the capacity that must be bought — and a battery on its own large connection pays that same capacity-based tariff, which is why tariff design has been the sector’s central complaint.
How the Energiewet treats a battery
The Energiewet replaced the Elektriciteitswet 1998 and the Gaswet with effect from 1 January 2026. It carries over the market roles of the European electricity directive and adds concepts that did not sit comfortably in the old Act, among them the active customer and energy storage.
The characterisation problem
A battery operator both takes electricity from the grid and feeds it back. Charging, it looks like an end user; discharging, like a producer, or a supplier if the electricity reaches a third party. As an end user it 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. The same asset can attract three treatments in a day, and the older framework had no clean answer.
What the Energiewet does about it
The Energiewet responds in two ways. It recognises energy storage as a distinct activity rather than forcing it into the producer or consumer box, so the storage facility and its operator can be identified as such. And it gives the active customer a statutory position: a customer who, alongside consuming, also generates, stores, sells or shares electricity, without that becoming its principal commercial activity. The ACM cites article 2.17 of the Energiewet for the active customer. So an industrial user with a battery behind its own meter does not lose its customer rights by trading flexibility, nor automatically become a regulated market party. The Energiewet classifies the energy storage facility expressly and gives it non-discriminatory rights of connection and transport, so a storage operator is entitled to be connected and transported on the same terms as any other network user.
- Supply licence. A licence is needed to supply small consumers. Supply to large consumers does not require one, and a battery selling 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, type D at 60 MW and above. Systems on the high-voltage grid count as type D whatever their size.
Getting connected: the transport contract in a congested area
In a congestion area a firm, unrestricted transport contract is usually unavailable. What is available is a family of contracts in which the customer gives up firmness 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, the time-duration right becoming mandatory for the transmission system operator from 1 October 2025. The capacity limitation product and the congestion service provider role date from the ACM’s congestion management code decision of 24 May 2022.
| Contract | What the customer commits to | What it delivers |
|---|---|---|
| Capaciteitssturingscontract (CSC) | Reduce, and now also increase or inject, on call-off or within agreed time blocks | A monthly fee, and access where a firm contract is unavailable; introduced by the ACM decision of 11 December 2025 (Staatscourant 2025, 42474) and offered alongside the CBC |
| Capaciteitsbeperkingscontract (CBC) | Reduce offtake when called, generally on the previous day’s notice | Payment negotiated with the operator; still one of the ACM’s congestion management products |
| Tijdsduurgebonden transportrecht (TDTR) | Firm transport for 85 per cent of the year’s hours, curtailment possible in the rest on a day’s notice; high-voltage grid | A lower capacity element in the tariff; an RVO study puts the cut at 40 to 50 per cent of the kW component |
| Tijdsblokgebonden transportrecht (TBTR, “blokstroom”) | Use the extra capacity only within fixed, pre-agreed time blocks above a base contract | Extra capacity at a reduced tariff, from regional operators; suits scheduled loads such as overnight charging |
| Groepstransportovereenkomst (Groeps-TO) | Nearby parties contract one capacity and allocate it among themselves, each keeping its own connection | Sites can grow without raising the group’s total capacity; put in place by the ACM decision of 11 December 2025 (Staatscourant 2025, 43262) |
The legal work is alike in structure and different in detail: what triggers a call-off, the notice given, the consequences of failing to respond, whether penalties are capped, how long the commitment runs, and whether it ends when the congestion does. Capacity promised to a grid operator must also be reconcilable with capacity promised under the optimiser agreement; double-selling the same flexibility is the commonest structural error we see. Availability is not uniform: a regional operator may offer the group transport agreement now, but is only obliged to do so from 1 January 2027, and each operator uses its own product names and standard documents. Ask your own system operator which of these forms it offers and under what name before designing the project around one of them.
Cable pooling: sharing one connection
Cable pooling means combining installations behind one connection — classically wind and solar, whose profiles do not peak together, and increasingly a battery added to either. The ACM applies conditions: a connection of at least 100 kVA, at most four installations identified by WOZ object, and installations located close together. Batteries qualify in the same way as solar and wind. Once the grid operator has agreed it, the shared connection must be notified to the ACM, on a basis the ACM locates in the Energiewet and the Energiebesluit. The notification goes in on the ACM’s own form, accompanied by the joint connection and transport agreement, an overview of the cadastral plots and the contract between the sharing parties. Take the conditions and the required documents from the ACM’s cable pooling page as they stand when the project is structured.
Permission is the easy half. The contract between the sharing parties 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 sharing with a solar park whose subsidy ends earlier needs an answer for the 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.
Energy tax and network tariffs
Double energy tax. Electricity taken from the grid attracts energy tax. If the same electricity is taxed again when discharged and delivered on, the 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 operating an energy storage facility behind a large-consumer connection which consumes electricity and meets the further conditions — the storage operator is recognised on its own footing rather than the levy simply falling twice. For small connections the problem is unresolved, because electricity from different sources mixes inside the battery, and no straightforward fix is in prospect. Separately, the netting scheme for small consumers ends on 1 January 2027, which changes the arithmetic of a domestic battery but not of an industrial project. The mechanism sits in art. 50 Wet belastingen op milieugrondslag, and it is not a general exemption for batteries behind the meter. What the 2022 Tax Plan did was to treat the organisational unit that operates the storage facility as itself liable, subject to conditions set by order in council, so that the electricity taken into the facility is not also taxed as a supply to an end user. Whether a given facility meets those conditions is a question for the Belastingdienst, and worth settling before the business case is signed off.
Network tariffs. 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 above are the regulator’s answer: give up firmness, pay less. For now the tariff outcome is decided by which transport right is chosen — a choice made at connection application stage, long before financial close.
Permits and safety
A grid-scale battery is both a construction project and an environmental one. Depending on the site and the omgevingsplan, an omgevingsvergunning may be needed for the building activity, for an activity the omgevingsplan permits, or for one that departs from it. The regular procedure runs to eight weeks with a possible six-week extension; a departure takes considerably longer.
The environmental rules are in transition. Storing large quantities of lithium batteries is not yet designated as a specified environmental activity in the Besluit activiteiten leefomgeving; designation is anticipated later this decade. Until then a battery either falls under Bal rules because it functionally supports a designated activity, or is governed by the omgevingsplan, including the transitional “bruidsschat” rules that the Invoeringsbesluit Omgevingswet wrote into every omgevingsplan, among them the specific duty of care for environmentally harmful activities in art. 22.44 of the bruidsschat. A draft decree designating both the operation of an energy storage system and the storage of lithium-containing batteries as an environmental activity in the Bal went out for consultation in 2026; until it is in force the position above holds.
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, alongside the RIVM calculation method for external safety around lithium-containing energy carriers. The practical reality is blunt: the safety region’s advice can stop a project. Safety regions may require more than the guidance does — access roads, turning circles, separation distances, water supply — and 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.
Land: securing the site
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, so a lease alone leaves the operator owning nothing it can finance. The answer is a right of superficies — an opstalrecht under article 5:101 of the Burgerlijk Wetboek — registered against title, separating ownership of the installation from ownership of the ground and allowing a mortgage over it. The deed should deal with duration and renewal, the retribution, transferability and mortgageability, access and cable routes, and removal and restoration at the end. Where the land is leased, the consents of owner and mortgagee must be secured before the EPC contract is signed.
The contracts that decide the return
EPC contract. Usually turnkey: one point of responsibility, defined completion tests, liquidated damages for delay and performance shortfall, retention or a bank guarantee, 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 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, the priority between them must be written down.
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.
Subsidies
No Dutch scheme pays a production tariff for storage as the SDE++ does for renewable production. The SDE++ covers renewable electricity, heat and gas, low-carbon heat and low-carbon production; the 2026 round runs in phases from 27 October to 26 November 2026. Adding a battery behind a subsidised installation raises a separate question about how metered subsidised production is established. A battery behind an SDE++ connection is permitted, provided the subsidised renewable generation is measured by a separate, approved gross production meter (bruto-productiemeter), so that charging from the grid cannot affect the determination of the subsidy. Investment and flexibility support does exist: the Energie-investeringsaftrek 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 open from 6 May to 15 October 2026; DEI+ supports demonstration projects.
Checklist: a battery behind your own meter
- Establish the connection position first: contracted capacity, whether the area is congested, and which transport right is available.
- Decide whether the battery sits behind the existing connection or takes its own, and model the tariff and tax consequences.
- Test the business case against the transport contract, not market spreads alone.
- Reconcile the grid operator’s call-off rights with the optimiser’s dispatch rights before signing either.
- Register the system in the applicable capacity category, and speak to the municipality and safety region before the layout is fixed, assuming PGS 37-1 will be applied.
- Secure the land with a registered opstalrecht and the consents financing requires, and align the LTSA capacity warranty with the use profile the optimiser may run.
- Involve the insurer during design, and check subsidy eligibility before ordering equipment — committing too early can cost it.
Is a battery operator an end user, a producer or a supplier?
It can look like all three, because it takes electricity when charging and feeds in when discharging. The Energiewet treats energy storage as an activity in its own right and gives a statutory position to the active customer, so a company that stores and sells alongside its main business does not become a regulated market party. The characterisation still drives tariffs, tax and code obligations, so settle it at design stage.
Is stored electricity taxed twice?
For large connections the position is workable: an organisational unit operating an energy storage facility behind a large-consumer connection is recognised for energy tax purposes on its own footing, subject to conditions. For small connections the double charge has not been resolved, because electricity from different sources mixes inside the battery. Verify the mechanism and its conditions for your specific configuration before the financial model is fixed.
Can I get a connection for a battery in a congested area?
Often yes, but not a firm one. Grid operators offer capacity control contracts, time-duration and time-block transport rights and group transport agreements, each trading firmness for access or a discount. The time-duration transport right, introduced by ACM code decision of 16 July 2024, gives firm transport for a minimum share of the year in return for a materially lower capacity element in the tariff.
Can a battery share a connection with a solar or wind park?
Yes, through cable pooling. The ACM applies conditions including a connection of at least 100 kVA, a maximum of four installations identified by WOZ object, and physical proximity; batteries qualify alongside solar and wind. The grid operator agrees the arrangement and it is notified to the ACM. The contract between the sharing parties — cost allocation, curtailment order, exit — is where the risk sits.
Which contract determines the return on a battery?
The optimiser or route-to-market agreement. It fixes whether you take market risk or receive a tolling fee, what the optimiser may do with the asset, how cycles are limited, who bears imbalance costs, and how revenue is calculated and audited. Its cycle limits must match the capacity warranty in the long-term service agreement; a mismatch between those two documents is a classic and expensive drafting failure.
