From 2029 your Dutch grid tariff depends on the time of day
Today every household pays the same flat amount for transporting electricity, no matter when you use it. From 1 January 2029 that part of your bill depends on the moment you take power from the grid. So you get a second price that moves. If you can shift your car, heat pump or water heater, from then on you earn twice: once on the market price, once on the grid tariff.
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The short version
A Dutch electricity bill has three parts: the power itself, taxes, and transport over the grid. That last part is roughly a third of the bill. Today it is a fixed yearly amount, whatever you do. Under the regulator’s proposal, on average a third of it stays fixed and depends on the size of your connection. The other two thirds is charged per kWh you take from the grid, at the rate of the time block that quarter-hour falls into. Use power in an expensive block and you pay more. Use it in a cheap block and you pay less — and on summer afternoons you pay nothing at all for transport.
Dynamic, fixed or variable →
The time blocks and what they roughly cost
The ACM, the Dutch competition and markets authority, modelled the proposal using 2026 grid costs. Treat these as indications, not as final rates.
| Season | Time block | Indicative rate per kWh | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winter October through March | 17:00–22:00 | about 17 cents | The most expensive moment of the year, more than twice the lowest rate |
| Winter | 15:00–17:00 and 22:00–01:00 | about 11 cents | The hours around the peak, roughly one and a half times the lowest rate |
| Winter | 01:00–15:00 | about 8 cents | The lowest winter rate, and the benchmark for the rest of this table |
| Summer April through September | 19:00–24:00 | about 11 cents | The summer evening peak, comparable to the winter shoulder hours |
| Summer | 00:00–03:00 | about 8 cents | Night, equal to the lowest winter rate |
| Summer | 03:00–10:00 and 17:00–19:00 | about 5 cents | Roughly sixty percent of the lowest winter rate |
| Summer | 10:00–17:00 | 0 cents | No grid charge at all, and usually the cheapest moment on the market too |
Pros and cons of dynamic →
Where the double benefit comes from
With a dynamic contract your supply price follows the day-ahead market. That price is high in the evening peak and low at night and in the middle of the day, when sun and wind deliver most. The new grid tariff does exactly the same: expensive in the evening peak, cheap at night, free on summer afternoons. Two prices pointing the same way.
On an ordinary winter day the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive hour on the day-ahead market is already around 8 to 12 cents per kWh. Check the price page for today’s figure. From 2029 another 9 cents of grid tariff sits on top of that. Together that is roughly 20 cents per kWh between the cheapest and the most expensive moment of the day.
Put your own numbers to it. An electric car uses about 7 kWh a day at 15,000 km a year. An electric water heater adds around 3 kWh a day. That is 10 kWh you can shift in principle. Today shifting it is worth about one euro a day. From 2029 that becomes close to two euros on a winter day, for exactly the same behaviour. You drive the same kilometres and your shower is just as warm.
Summer afternoons become the sweet spot
Between 10:00 and 17:00 in summer the variable grid tariff drops to zero. Those are precisely the hours when solar pushes the market price down, and on the sunniest days below zero. Charge, heat your water or pre-cool the house then and you pay only the low market price and nothing for the grid. If you have solar panels, it lines up with your own production, so you use more of your own power. That matters more now that net metering ends in 2027.
What can you actually shift?
The electric car. The biggest and the easiest one. It is parked overnight anyway and rarely needs every hour. In Berenschot’s modelling, most of the shifting comes from electric cars. See smart EV charging and bidirectional charging.
The heat pump. A house holds its heat for a few hours, so heating a little earlier or later usually goes unnoticed. See heat pump and a dynamic contract.
The hot water tank. Hot water stores itself, which turns a tank into a heat battery.
Washing machine, dryer and dishwasher. A delayed start or a smart plug moves them into a cheap block without you thinking about it.
A home battery. It charges in the cheap block and powers the house during the expensive hours. See the home battery guide.
What you cannot shift is your base load: fridge, lighting, wi-fi and medical equipment. The proposal does not expect you to. A home energy management system is what ties the rest together.
Shifting demonstrably works
This is not theory. In a study of more than 100,000 people on a dynamic tariff, consumption during the expensive peak hours was 9 to 19 percent lower, and 24 to 31 percent higher in the middle of the day, than average. Those figures come from an analysis by the Dutch motoring association ANWB and fed into the design of the new grid tariff. The group is not representative of all households: people who choose a dynamic tariff today more often drive electric and pay closer attention. But it shows how much room there is once real price signals are put in front of people. And from 2029 those signals arrive twice over.
Pros and cons of dynamic →
What it does to your total bill
To be straight about it: this proposal redistributes grid costs, it does not lower them. The modelling says 53 to 64 percent of households pay less than they would have under the old system, and 36 to 47 percent pay more. An average apartment gains roughly 100 to 200 euros a year. A detached house with a heat pump and an electric car pays 300 to 450 euros a year more, even when it shifts as much as it can, simply because the variable part scales with consumption. So shifting does not decide whether you pay more or less than today, but it does decide how much — and it is the only dial you control yourself. Berenschot also calculated for the economic affairs ministry that a heat pump stays cheaper than a gas boiler over its lifetime, and that solar panels dampen grid costs: with ten panels, by up to 28 percent.
Feeding back stays outside the clock
The time-dependent tariff applies only to power you take from the grid. You pay no grid tariff on what you feed back, not even during the expensive hours, and you are not paid a grid tariff for it either. The proposal has no negative grid tariffs. What you earn on exported power still depends on your feed-in tariff.
Why this is happening
The grid is full during the evening peak while it has room the rest of the day. See grid congestion for households. The grid operators expect this tariff to cut the household peak by about 10 percent, which frees up room for roughly 700,000 extra homes without digging up streets for heavier cables first.
That it became an hourly tariff rather than a monthly peak charge comes from a 2024 Berenschot study for the grid operators. Four options were weighed: an hourly price, time blocks, a monthly peak, and capacity tiers. The hourly price and the monthly peak scored best; the hourly price won on grid impact and on fit with the energy transition. Belgium went the other way and charges on your monthly peak, so it works differently there.
A year later Berenschot looked again at how many tariff steps were needed, and found something instructive. With only two rates the peak barely fell: 2.8 percent. The highest peak actually rose by 1.7 percent, because everything switched on at once at 23:00 the moment the cheap rate began. With six or more steps that effect disappeared. That is why the current proposal has several steps and why the lowest winter rate only starts at 01:00. So if you are thinking “I will just put everything on at 01:00”: that was anticipated, and you would not be alone.
The timeline
The ACM published the draft decision on 8 October 2026. In it the most expensive winter block had already been shortened from 16:00–23:00 to 17:00–22:00, and the separate morning peak from the earlier version was dropped. The zero rate on summer afternoons is new. Stakeholders had six weeks to respond. The final decision follows in early 2027, the actual rates are set at the end of 2028, and the rules take effect on 1 January 2029. They apply to small connections up to and including 3×80 amps, which covers virtually every home and small business. Large connections on the regional grids come first, on 1 January 2028.
How a dynamic contract works →
How to get ready now
1. Measure where your consumption sits. A P1 meter shows you what happens quarter by quarter.
2. Look at quarter-hourly prices rather than daily averages. The day-ahead market already settles per quarter and the new grid tariff will too.
3. Automate one appliance. Start with the car or the water heater: most volume, least loss of comfort.
4. When you next change contract, pick a supplier that settles per quarter and offers smart control, so you are not watching the clock yourself. See switching to a dynamic contract and how prices are set.
Nothing needs to happen before 2029. But whoever learns to shift now collects double from that moment on, with the same behaviour.
Frequently asked questions
Does this apply if I have a fixed contract?
Yes. The grid tariff is separate from your supply contract and is identical on a fixed, variable or dynamic contract. The difference is that with a dynamic contract your supply price moves with the moment as well, so the two benefits add up. On a fixed contract you only gain on the grid tariff.
Do I need a smart meter?
Yes, because consumption has to be measured per quarter-hour. More than nine in ten Dutch households already have one. Pros and cons of dynamic →
Is this settled?
No. It is a draft decision by the ACM. The final decision is due in early 2027 and the rates are set at the end of 2028. The time blocks may still move and the amounts in this article are indications. How a dynamic contract works →
Will my bill go down?
That depends on how much power you use and when. Just over half of households come out ahead, mostly homes with lower consumption. Households that drive and heat electrically pay more in total, but they are also the ones who can make the biggest difference by shifting. Pros and cons of dynamic →
Does the fixed part disappear?
No. On average a third of the transport tariff stays a fixed amount based on the size of your connection. The rest becomes dependent on your consumption and its timing. Dynamic, fixed or variable →
Is this the same as the Belgian capacity tariff?
No. Belgium charges part of the grid cost on your monthly peak, that is, on the highest quarter-hour of the month. The Netherlands is choosing a per-kWh rate that varies by time block. In Belgium spreading your load helps; in the Netherlands timing helps.
Sources for this article
ACM, draft decision on volume- and time-dependent tariffs for small connections, 8 October 2026.
Berenschot, ‘Toelichting op totstandkoming voorgesteld nettarief’ for Netbeheer Nederland, 2024.
Berenschot, ‘Analyse alternatieve tijdgebonden nettarief varianten’ for Netbeheer Nederland, 2025.
Berenschot, study of the effects for households for the Ministry of Economic Affairs, included in the parliamentary letter of 15 September 2026.
Read next: How a dynamic contract works →
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