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ACM Monitor: suppliers more and more often distinguish between customers with and without solar panels, HEM’s rates still the highest

Energy suppliers distinguish more and more often between customers with and without solar panels. This is one of the conclusions of the most recent Monitor on the consumer energy market. More and more suppliers decide not to offer multi-year fixed contracts to households with solar panels, or they charge households with solar panels higher rates or standing charges. The monitor also shows that energy supplier Hollandse Energie Maatschappij (HEM) still charges exceptionally high rates for energy contracts that are offered in telemarketing calls.

It is not prohibited for suppliers to distinguish between customers with and without solar panels. ACM is currently conducting a study into the extra costs that energy suppliers incur for households with solar panels. This study’s preliminary results have revealed that, for the average customer, suppliers can incur up to several hundreds of euros in extra costs. The extra costs are the result of higher purchasing costs, higher imbalance costs, and costs that are associated with the net metering scheme. To get a better understanding of the actual costs and how suppliers include these in their rates, ACM has started a follow-up study into four suppliers. ACM expects to publish the results of this follow-up study later this month.

According to ACM’s Monitor on the consumer energy market, eighteen suppliers offer multi-year contracts (longer than two years). Five of these suppliers also offer these multi-year contracts to households with solar panels (last month, seven suppliers still did so). The monitor also shows that these contracts with these five suppliers are more expensive than the multi-year contracts that are only offered to households without solar panels.

Compared with households without solar panels, households with solar panels pay, with eleven suppliers, higher fixed supply costs or higher variable rates, or they get lower sign-up bonuses or rebates (or none at all). With seven suppliers, customers with solar panels pay an additional fee for the electricity that they feed into the grid. This additional fee is gradually calculated on the basis of the amount of electricity that is fed into the grid.

A repeat warning against HEM’s high rates

ACM’s Monitor on the consumer energy market shows that energy supplier ‘Hollandse Energie Maatschappij’ (HEM) continues to charge exceptionally high rates for energy contracts that are offered in telemarketing calls. ACM recently fined HEM and the intermediary Global Marketing Bridge (GMB) 1.1 million euros and 400,000 euros, respectively, for using deceptive telemarketing calls for selling energy contracts. An energy contract is a complex product. That is why ACM has already often argued for a ban on telemarketing calls involving energy contracts.

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