Flex-e subsidy consultation: more room for energy storage and flexibility

The Ministry of Climate and Green Growth (KGG) has opened the Internet consultation for the amendment of the subsidy scheme Flexible Electricity Consumption (Flex-e).. With this modification, the ministry aims to make the scheme more effective and enforceable, allowing companies to respond more quickly to grid congestion.

The Flex-e scheme is designed to support companies in making their electricity consumption more flexible so that they can continue to grow, become sustainable or establish themselves despite grid congestion. In the first opening round, the mandatory congestion management contract proved to be a major obstacle, especially for smaller flexibility measures.

Major changes in the second opening

Based on a review, the scheme is now being modified. The main change is to split the component for investment in flexibility measures:

• For flexibility measures with less than 100 kW of flexible power eliminates the obligation to enter into a congestion management contract.
• For measures of 100 kW or more continues to require a congestion management contract so that this flexibility can actually be used for the electricity system.

In addition, the target group is broadened to include all parties with a large user connection, allowing access to companies with smaller contracted transmission capacity. This will better support flexibility for individual companies, while allowing grid operators to focus their scarce capacity on greater system-relevant flexibility.

Opportunities for energy storage

For the energy storage sector, the modified Flex-e offers significant opportunities. Energy storage is explicitly mentioned as an eligible flexibility measure. Abandoning the congestion management contract for smaller capacities makes it attractive for more companies to invest in energy storage for their own business continuity, growth and sustainability. This does require that the applicant send a conceptual-technical design along with the grant application, showing that the system is intended to support business processes and is not primarily used for electricity trading.

A maximum of €300,000 subsidy can be applied for per flexibility measure. For measures under 100 kW, €6.6M will become available, for larger measures €9.9M.

Call for participation in the consultation

Energy Storage NL has actively contributed to the evaluation of Flex-E and is positive that the scheme has been broadened and better aligned with congestion management practices. At the same time, ESNL points to the need for the accelerated implementation of congestion management contracts, in order to unleash precisely the larger projects. In addition, ESNL also sees many opportunities for mobile storage to drive flexibility among large consumers, and the industry believes that the regulation should also provide room for this. Finally, ESNL pleads, together with NVDE and Netbeheer NL, for a further increase of the Flex-E budget towards the formation.

We call on our members and other interested parties to share their experiences and concerns to be shared via internet consultation. In this way we can jointly contribute to a scheme that effectively deploys flexibility and energy storage for a future-proof energy system. The consultation is open until February 17, and the new opening is planned for spring.