Dutch households pay EUR 13 more for energy transmission in 2017

In 2017, the tariffs that distribution system operators (DSOs) are allowed to charge for the transmission of electricity and natural gas will increase on average by 13 EUR per year per Dutch household. The transmission tariffs for electricity will decrease by EUR 5 per year, for natural gas the tariffs will increase by EUR 18 per year. This was revealed by the tariff decisions for 2017, which were released by the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM). Transmission costs take up about a fifth of the energy bills of households.

Investments in quality and safety of transmission of natural gas

The transmission tariffs slightly differ per region. The increase in transmission tariffs for natural gas is mainly due to the replacement of old natural-gas connections. These investments are necessary for the quality and safety of the transmission of natural gas.

Lower costs for transmission of electricity

The DSOs have incurred fewer costs than expected over the past few years. This explains the decrease in transmission tariffs for electricity.  Furthermore, transmission on the national grid in 2015 proved to be less expensive than expected. This has been settled in the tariffs for 2017.

Reasonable transmission costs for natural gas and electricity

ACM’s tariff decisions follow from the method decisions ACM published in September. ACM has drawn up a method for determining the maximum revenues of the system operators for electricity and natural gas for the period of 2017 through 2012. Each year, ACM sets, on the basis of these ‘method decisions,’ the tariffs that system operators are allowed to charge businesses and consumers. The idea behind this is to come to reasonable transmission tariffs for electricity and natural gas. In addition, system operators must be able to recoup their investments, for example in safety and sustainability, insofar such investments are efficient. In that way, consumers and businesses do not end up paying too much, while system operators earn enough to continue making investments in a sustainable and secure supply of energy.