Solar energy projects in the Netherlands: the legal framework for rooftop and ground-mounted solar

Solar is the quickest route to renewable capacity in the Netherlands, and the legal work is harder than the engineering. Whether you are putting panels on your own warehouse roof, letting a roof to a developer, or leasing farmland for a solar park, the same four questions decide whether a project is financeable: who owns the installation, who may build it, who may sell the power, and when the grid operator will connect it.

Three project types, three different legal problems

Dutch law has no “solar act”. A solar project is assembled out of property, planning, energy, contract and subsidy law, and which dominates depends on the project type.

Solar on your own roof for your own use is the simplest case. You own the building and the installation and consume the power. There is normally no permit, no land right to create and no supply licence question; the issues are construction, insurance and the grid connection.

Solar on a roof let to a third party separates ownership from use. A developer builds and owns the installation on your roof and sells the power to you, to your tenant, or to the grid. That needs a roof lease, a right of superficies, an arrangement about the connection, and rules for a sale of the building.

A ground-mounted solar farm is a development project. It needs planning permission, a real right over the land that survives a sale and supports a mortgage, a grid connection that may be years away, and a removal regime at the end.

Permits and planning

When rooftop solar is permit-free

Under the Omgevingswet, panels and collectors on a roof are designated nationally as a permit-free environmental plan activity in the Besluit bouwwerken leefomgeving (art. 2.28 Bbl and art. 2.29 Bbl). On a pitched roof the panels must sit within the roof plane and follow its angle; on a flat roof they must be set back from the edge by at least the height of the panel; the inverter or storage must be inside the building.

Permit-free is not rule-free. The technical requirements of the Bbl still apply, and roof strength causes the most difficulty: an older industrial roof often cannot carry a ballasted system. Do the structural calculation before signing.

Listed buildings and protected townscapes

The exemption falls away for protected heritage. Art. 2.30 Bbl excludes national monuments, provisionally protected national monuments and buildings in a protected town or village view. Those need an omgevingsvergunning, and on a national monument a monument activity is assessed as well, which is a substantive heritage test. Municipal and provincial monuments are dealt with in the environmental plan or the provincial regulation.

Ground-mounted solar: the omgevingsvergunning and the BOPA route

A solar farm on agricultural or unused land is almost always contrary to the function the environmental plan assigns to the land. That makes it an out-of-plan environmental plan activity, the buitenplanse omgevingsplanactiviteit or BOPA, for which an omgevingsvergunning is required (art. 5.1 Ow). The regular procedure applies as a rule: eight weeks, extendable by six. The extended procedure, with a six-month period, applies in the cases set out in the Omgevingswet (art. 16.65 Ow).

Three points are underestimated. Participation with the surrounding area is expected and is tested seriously. Under art. 16.15a Ow the municipal council is a compulsory adviser on an out-of-plan environmental plan activity in the cases the council has itself designated. The provision does not oblige every municipality to draw up such a list, so whether an advisory role applies to a particular project has to be checked against the designation decision of the municipality concerned; where it does apply, a technical application becomes a political decision. And ecology and environmental impact screening shape the design: whether a screening (m.e.r.-beoordeling) is required follows from annex D to the Besluit m.e.r., read with the Omgevingsbesluit, which sets the thresholds by reference to surface area and installed capacity.

The zonneladder and where solar farms may go

The zonneladder, or solar ladder, is the order of preference that steers solar to roofs and already-used or low-value land before open agricultural land and nature. It is policy, not statute. It originates in national policy from 2019 and takes effect through provincial environmental visions and regulations and through municipal solar policy, which set where a farm may be considered and on what conditions.

So “is this permitted” is the wrong question. The right one is whether the site falls within the categories the province and the municipality have already said they will entertain. Outside them, the applicant carries the burden of justification.

Land rights: the most important point on this page

Accession: why a lease is not enough

Ownership of land in the Netherlands includes the buildings and works permanently united with it (art. 5:20 BW). This is natrekking, or accession. If a developer builds a solar installation on land or a roof belonging to someone else, the installation becomes the landowner’s property by operation of law.

A lease does not solve this. A lease of land, huur, or of agricultural land, pacht, gives a personal right of use. It does not carve the installation out of the landowner’s ownership. A developer holding only a lease has spent millions on assets belonging to its counterparty and cannot grant security over them.

The right of superficies

The answer is a right of superficies, the opstalrecht: a real right to have or acquire ownership of buildings, works or plantings in, on or above immovable property belonging to another (art. 5:101 BW). It breaks the accession rule, so the installation stays the property of the holder of the right.

It must be created by notarial deed and registered (art. 3:89 BW). Because it is a real right it binds a purchaser of the land automatically, and because it is registered it can be mortgaged. That is why no bank finances a solar farm on third-party land on a lease alone. The deed should fix the duration, matched to the project life and the offtake; the consideration, whether a periodic retributie or a capitalised sum; restrictions on termination; mortgage and transfer; and the position at the end of the term.

The right can be created independently or as a right dependent on an underlying lease, so that both run and end together. What does not work is a lease with a promise to grant a superficies right “on financial close”, which exposes the developer in exactly the period when it is spending money.

Two related points matter. The tax authorities’ recourse against movable assets found on a business’s premises can reach equipment belonging to someone else (art. 22 Invorderingswet 1990), a further reason to hold a registered real right. And where land is let for commercial agriculture the statutory pacht regime applies (art. 7:311 BW); a solar farm is not agriculture, so that relationship must usually be ended first.

The roof lease

The same analysis applies to roofs, with one nuance. A ballasted system resting on the roof is arguably not permanently united with the building, so accession may not operate. The argument is respectable but not certain, and no lender will lend on it. In practice a roof lease is combined with a superficies right over roof, cables and the technical room.

A workable roof lease also settles access and notice, responsibility for leaks and damage, who pays when the roof must be replaced and the panels removed and reinstalled, the load the roof must carry, insurance, and the position on a sale.

The grid connection and congestion

The grid is now the binding constraint on Dutch solar. The network operators state plainly that the network is full in a growing number of places, and in much of the country new feed-in capacity is not available on request. Where there is none, the project joins a queue while the operator investigates congestion management and reinforcement.

For any project of scale the transport indication, and later the connection and transport agreement, drive the timetable, the subsidy application and the financing. Establish the connection position first and design the commercial structure around it. Where firm capacity is unavailable, the alternatives are flexible transport contracts, cable pooling, curtailment by design, and storage behind the connection. A curtailed project produces less, and the offtake contract must reflect that.

Supplying the power: behind the meter and the supply licence

If you generate on your own roof and consume the power yourself, you supply no one and no energy regulation follows. That changes as soon as electricity crosses to another party.

Under the Energiewet it is prohibited to supply electricity or gas to an end user with a small connection without a licence (art. 2.17 Energiewet). The requirement is tied to the size of the customer’s connection, and that decides most cases. Supplying a commercial tenant with its own large connection needs no licence and is documented as an on-site power purchase agreement. Supplying small consumers behind your own connection does engage the prohibition, unless an exception applies.

Where a building has one connection and several small tenants, the structures used are a recognised closed distribution system (art. 3.7 Energiewet), supply through a licensed party, or a service-charge arrangement passing power through at cost.

The energy tax follows a comparable logic. The main rule is that the tax is levied on supply of electricity through a connection to the consumer. Where that consumer supplies the electricity on to another consumer, the first supply does not count as the primary supply, so the levy attaches further down the chain. For electricity that a landlord generates from renewable sources on or near the building and supplies to a residential tenant, a specific exception applies (art. 50 and art. 53 Wbm). Relying on the on-supply exception is conditional: it requires a declaration from the party supplying on, a corresponding administration and proper metering (art. 8ab Uitvoeringsregeling belastingen op milieugrondslag).

The end of net metering

This is the most searched aspect of Dutch solar and most of what is written about it online is out of date. The position is settled. The netting scheme, the salderingsregeling, under which a small consumer sets electricity fed into the grid off against electricity taken from it, ends on 1 January 2027. It does not taper; it stops.

From that date owners of solar panels receive a payment from their supplier for everything they feed back. Until 2030 that payment must be at least fifty per cent of the bare supply tariff for electricity. Suppliers may charge feed-in costs, but only costs they actually incur, and the Autoriteit Consument en Markt supervises both. The netting rule sits in the Energiewet (art. 2.31 Energiewet), which has replaced the Elektriciteitswet 1998 and the Gaswet.

For this audience the important point is different. Netting has always applied only to small connections, never to commercial rooftop installations on large connections or to solar farms. A business case for a commercial project that relies on netting is wrong, and was wrong before 2027 as well.

Subsidy and revenue

The main support scheme for larger projects is the SDE++, which subsidises the unprofitable component of renewable production and CO2 reduction for businesses and non-profit organisations. Applications are made in an annual round in competing phases at rising subsidy intensities; the 2026 round runs from 27 October to 26 November 2026 in five phases. One procedural point is crucial: the permit must already be held when the application is submitted, so planning and subsidy timetables must be planned together.

For smaller and cooperative projects the alternatives are the cooperative generation scheme, the energy investment allowance and other fiscal facilities, and, for the smallest, the feed-in payment above. Without subsidy, the route is a power purchase agreement.

A PPA is a long-term contract to sell the output to a corporate offtaker or a trader. The negotiation turns on term, firm volume against pay-as-produced, indexation, guarantees of origin, imbalance and profile risk, negative prices, curtailment, credit support and change of law. Where the project is financed on the PPA, the lender will want a direct agreement with the offtaker.

Insurance and fire risk

Insurance has become a genuine obstacle to rooftop solar and is now a condition precedent rather than an afterthought. After fire losses involving photovoltaic installations, insurers tightened terms sharply: independent inspection to a recognised scope before energising and periodically afterwards, requirements as to cabling, connectors and isolation, and in some cases refusal to renew.

Three consequences follow. The roof owner’s property insurer must consent before construction, and the lease should say so. The lease and the maintenance contract should allocate responsibility for inspections and defects, and give the roof owner a remedy if the installation renders the building uninsurable. The scope insurers work to is standardised: SCIOS Scope 12, developed at the initiative of the Verbond van Verzekeraars, which combines an inspection of the installation with a risk assessment covering the load-bearing capacity of the structure, the ventilation of in-roof systems, the combustibility of roof materials and the connectors. It is carried out as an initial inspection on completion and repeated periodically; the Verbond’s own prevention guidance for photovoltaic installations points to a check every three to five years in accordance with NEN-EN-IEC 62446. The binding requirement, however, is the one in the policy or clause sheet of the particular insurer, and it is that document — not the general guidance — the lease and the maintenance contract should be drafted against.

Apartment buildings and the VvE

In a building divided into apartment rights the roof is normally a common part, and an individual owner cannot simply place panels on it. Installation requires a decision of the owners’ association, the vereniging van eigenaars (art. 5:124 BW), taken in accordance with the deed of division. Where one owner is given exclusive use of part of the common roof, the deed must be amended, which requires a qualified majority and a notarial deed (art. 5:139 BW).

Selling the building or the land

What a buyer inherits depends on the form of the rights. A registered right of superficies binds the buyer automatically: it takes the land subject to a third party’s ownership of the installation for the remaining term. A lease also survives a transfer of ownership (art. 7:226 BW), but gives only a personal right of use. Obligations that are not real rights must be secured by a chain clause and a qualitative obligation (art. 6:252 BW).

Due diligence covers the deed of superficies and its term, the lease, the connection and transport agreement and its capacity, the subsidy decision and whether it transfers, the PPA and its change of control provisions, insurance and inspection reports, and the removal security.

Decommissioning and removal

A solar farm has a defined life and the land is expected to return to its former use. The obligation to dismantle and restore should appear in three places: in the permit or the agreement with the municipality, which commonly imposes removal as a condition; in the deed of superficies; and in the security.

Security is what landowners most often get wrong. The developer that built the farm may not own it in year twenty-two. Require a bank guarantee or equivalent, sized on an independent estimate of removal and restoration costs, indexed, and funded from revenue. A removal obligation owed by a company whose only asset is a depreciated farm is worth little.

Checklists

For a landowner approached about a solar farm:

• Insist on a right of superficies, not a lease, before granting exclusivity.
• Check provincial and municipal solar policy first.
• Deal with existing pacht or lease and any mortgage first.
• Agree the consideration, indexation and development-period payments.
• Cap development with a longstop date tied to permit and grid.
• Secure removal with an indexed guarantee; control change of control.
• Regulate access, cables, fencing, drainage and soil quality.

For a roof owner approached about a rooftop installation:

• Obtain the structural calculation and decide who pays for strengthening.
• Make the lease conditional on your insurer’s consent.
• Check for monument status or a protected townscape.
• Combine the roof lease with a superficies right over roof and cables.
• Settle who takes the power, at what price, and any licence question.
• Regulate roof replacement, leaks, damage and end-of-term making good.
• Check how capacity is shared with your own consumption.