I don't know how the situation is in your country, but here in the Netherlands everything around energy (electricity) is a damn hot topic and always up for a discussion since the rules seem to change every second of it.
One of the recent things that is subject to change is about the rates of solar panels. Over the last couple of years it was always possible to get solar panels (which have always been heavily and heavily subsidized) an with the capacity that was produced more, you were able to 'use' it in another moment of the year.
So say if you would make 5 kwh on a sunny day in June, your contract would allow you to 'use' that kwh in December and zero everything out.
Pixabay
Great idea you would say, the incentive to get as many solar panels on the roof as possible was totally there. After all, winters are long here in the Netherlands and it pays off to get stuff going.
Until the rules of the game have changed
In 2027 this will change and the '1 kwh in will give you 1 kwh out' days are over. I don't really have an opinion on this. What I do know is that the capacity of the Dutch electricity grid is not how it should be.
More and more is getting electrical and the grid is starting to have issues with it. That is when the big energy companies started fining the people who were producing over capacity. At some contracts this is like 5 bucks per month, but at some contracts this is even a lot more.
It feels wrong to first have promoted everything and 'but and grow' and 'you are helping the world by doing this' to now getting fined for it.
That is where dynamic contracts come on in
Dynamic contracts are used per hour to see what the grid is doing and how much the fair price for something is at that moment. When people enter their home after work and start cooking and turn on all applications on a Monday, the price will be lot higher that on a Sunday where the is no industrial using all of the power.
Combine that with what the market gives for electricity and wind on that day if it is sunny on not, and there you have the 'fair price'.
The fair price is also with 12 cent energy tax to be honest. So if you use electricity from the grid at 20 cent, to give it back to the grid you will receive 8 cent for this.
I love this principle because this is the true supply and demand structure what we can use and work with without just 'randomly' starting all appliances. It's a bit of using the brain and getting rewarded when doing so.
Because in most contracts electricity will cost 38 cent per kwh on a fixed price, but actually the dynamic price will literally never reach that amount. (yeah that one monday evening maybe where it was 72 cents. Just better not charge a car and do the cooking beforehand maybe)
Today is a special day
So specifically this Sunday it is all something else. It is super sunny outside and it is very windy outside so that means that I had already expected that the prices would be very low today.
So I saved up my laundry from some days and also had the dishwasher ready to rumble for now (setting timers is the best way to fool around with dynamic prices) and also more stuff to charge.
And that is when I saw the prices!
Minus 28 cents per kwh which you take off of the grid. Boom, talk about making passive income with the stuff you already normally do.
So that means if I am doing my laundry, I get money back to do so. And all of this is because the grid is so full that they want to use any electricity laying around before it gets too heavy.
This going even further, check it out below here.
With taking off the tax with 'giving it back' to the grid that means that will charge you for giving back electricity with your solar panels. And not a little something, paying 40 cents per kwh and that is a lot if you would have a lot of panels which are all just doing nothing.
So it pays off to not give anything back to the grid, and use up as much as possible.
That is where software comes in
Now we all know that it is super bad for solar panels to just head out on the main switch and booom flip it over. From a lot of energy to zero is not a good idea.
But there is some software that takes the current prices in consideration and automatises it in. And it is almost annoying that not everyone has access to this, because this is the savior to an extreme grid day like this one it. These kinds of things literally help the grid to get out of the crowded situation of a day like today.
Literally one the second of the clock the panels turned off automatically and a minute later I let the laundry start. Because it has to be done anyway so why not take advantage of the price and use it in your own benefit
Use the dynamics in your favour! Doing laundry was the best paying this ever today ;)