To fund the Dutch Climate Agreement, energy consumers are to pay a higher Renewable Energy Surcharge (ODE). Under the current system of exemptions, more often than not large-scale consumers are exempt from the charge and so in the future some companies will see their energy costs rise particularly sharply, with little attendant incentivisation of greening their business.
This issue can be resolved by replacing the increase in ODE by a broadening of the current CO2 charge, introducing a charge rate of € 9/tCO2 for all registered industrial CO2 emissions in 2021, rising in € 1 annual increments to € 13/tCO2 in 2025.
This change would mean adherence to the principle that industry should fund its own subsidies. The ODE increase could then be reduced or even retracted entirely for industry. In addition, broadening the scope of the current CO2 charge would yield around 1 Mt CO2 cuts and improve the chance of Climate Agreement targets indeed being secured.