One of the means envisaged to reduce electricity bills – and many Belgians are thinking about it for the moment – is the installation of solar panels. But what happens to the electricity produced when it is not consumed? Is it bought by energy distributors?
Let’s take the following example: you are the owner of photovoltaic panels. You produce 5,000 kilowatt hours per year. You consume 4,000 every year. The difference is sent over the network. The meter then spins backwards and this is called compensation. The system established in Wallonia.
Régis François is president of the non-profit organization “Don’t touch my green certificates”: “The energy that we overproduce ‘in summer’, we will be able to find it in winter. This principle is valid for installations that will be commissioned until 31/12/2023. The principle of compensation is guaranteed by the government until 2030.”
The owners have already been strongly affected
Wallonia has 220,000 owners of photovoltaic panels. Brussels, 13,000 while in Flanders, there are around 100,000. In Flanders and Brussels, the legislation is different. Since last year, suppliers have been able to buy back this excess energy. The Walloon regime remains much more profitable, but will stop for new installations on January 1, 2024.
“In Wallonia, owners have already been strongly affected by a prosumer tariff and sometimes by the removal of five years of green certificates. I think that the government wanted to leave incentives in order to develop as many installations as possible on the network” , says Régis François.
And as with each moratorium, in Wallonia, estimates predict 30,000 new panel installations for next year. Especially since in 10 years, prices have been divided by three, including labor and VAT.