CE Delft and Witteveen+Bos conducted research on home and community batteries for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (Ministerie van Economische Zaken en Klimaat), following the motion of member Erkens et al (35 594 No. 38) and action from the Energy Storage Roadmap. This study involved research into bottlenecks and opportunities for home and community batteries and made appropriate policy recommendations. The main bottlenecks for a possible rollout of these batteries are the boundary conditions (mainly fire safety and spatial integration), the expected peak increase effect on grid load and grid congestion, and an uneconomic business case under the current policies. Our research shows that even with modification of the netting scheme, the business case remains difficult.
Two opportunities were explored: additional CO2 reduction and enabling area development despite grid congestion. We conclude that these batteries enable CO2 reduction in the Dutch electricity sector, but that this CO2 reduction is expected to be lower than the CO2 emissions during battery production and recycling. For area development in grid congestion areas, a group contract is a good problem-solving approach, within which a battery can increase the potential of the solution.
Our advice to the government and grid operators based on this study is as follows: