Net metering ends in 2027: how to charge your car using your own solar power

On January 1, 2027, the net metering scheme will end. You will no longer be able to offset the electricity your solar panels feed back into the grid against the electricity you use in the evening and during the winter. For most households with solar panels, this means a higher energy bill.

If you drive an electric car, you have an advantage that many people underestimate: there is a large battery in your driveway. Every kilowatt-hour that goes into your car instead of the grid will soon yield much more than feeding it back. How much exactly, and what you need for that, you can read below.

Table of Contents

• What changes on January 1, 2027?
• Why your car is the best place for your solar electricity
• What does it yield? A calculation example
• How charging on solar surplus works
• The 6-ampere limit: why 1-phase charging is smarter here
• Which charging station and which meter do you need?
• When it yields little
• Home battery, car or both?
• What you can arrange before January 1
• Frequently asked questions

What changes on January 1, 2027?

Until December 31, 2026, the net metering scheme still applies fully. If you feed back 2,500 kWh in the summer, you can use 2,500 kWh in the winter without paying electricity costs, network costs, or energy tax for it.

From January 1, 2027, that will be over. You will then pay for all the electricity you consume, and for every kWh you feed back, you will receive a feed-in allowance from your energy supplier. Until 2030, that is legally at least 50% of the basic feed-in rate, the rate without taxes.

That basic rate is lower than you think. Zonneplan calculates it for you: if you pay 24 cents per kWh, then the basic rate is around 11 cents, and your minimum feed-in allowance is around 5.5 cents. Suppliers may give more, but some also charge feed-in costs.

On average, a household uses about 30 percent of its own solar electricity directly. The rest goes onto the grid. Until now, that made little difference to your wallet. From 2027, it will.

Why your car is the best place for your solar electricity

A home battery of 5 kWh is full after a sunny morning. The battery of an average electric car is around 60 kWh, and a car that drives 12,000 kilometers per year consumes roughly 2,000 to 2,500 kWh. That is more than half of what a roof with ten panels generates in a year.

Your car can therefore absorb a large part of your summer surplus, without you having to buy a separate battery for that. There are two conditions: the car must be at home when the sun shines, and your charging station must know how much electricity you have left over.

What does it yield? A calculation example

Suppose: you have a fixed contract and pay 27 cents per kWh. For electricity fed back, you will receive around 5 cents from 2027 onwards. Every kWh that you put into your car instead of feeding it back, saves you 22 cents.

Assumptions: consumption 18 kWh per 100 km, purchase rate 27 cents and feed-in allowance 5 cents per kWh. With a dynamic contract, it is different: on sunny afternoons, electricity is often already cheap.

How much you charge on solar in practice depends mainly on when your car is at home. If you work from home a few days a week, then 500 to 1,000 kWh per year is a realistic estimate. If the car is at your workplace during the week, then it will mostly be on the weekends.

How charging on solar surplus works

A charging station does not know by itself how much your solar panels generate. It must look at your smart meter. This is done via a dongle in the P1 port of your smart meter, or via an energy meter with current clamps (CT clamps) in the meter cabinet. The charging station then sees how much electricity goes onto the grid, and adjusts the charging power accordingly.

Most smart charging stations have a few modes for this. The names differ per brand, but it comes down to this:

• Solar only: the car charges only when there is enough surplus.
• Solar with a minimum: the charging station always charges a little, and ramps up when the sun breaks through.
• Direct charging: full power, for when you need to leave quickly.

If you combine that with a departure time in the app or in the car, then it works well in practice: as much solar as possible during the day, and whatever is still missing after that, the car charges at night.

The 6-ampere limit: why 1-phase charging is smarter here

This is where it often goes wrong. A charging station cannot charge a car with less than 6 amperes per phase; that lower limit is in the charging standard. On three phases, that is around 4.1 kW together. On one phase, the minimum is only 1.4 kW.

An average roof with ten panels generates around 3 to 3.5 kW on a sunny afternoon. Subtract the consumption in the house from that and you often have 2 to 3 kW left. That is too little to charge on three phases on solar only. The charging station then supplements with electricity from the grid, or does not charge at all.

A charging station that automatically switches between charging on one and three phases solves that. With little sun, it charges on one phase from 1.4 kW, with a lot of sun it switches to three phases. Do you have a 1-phase connection? Then this is not an issue: you charge on one phase anyway, and thus already from 1.4 kW surplus.

Which charging station and which meter do you need?

Not every charging station can charge on solar surplus, and for most you need an extra meter or module for that. Of the charging stations in our assortment:

Prices from our webshop, price level November 1, 2026.

Which meter or module belongs with your charging station, you can also see in our load balancing collection. Often it is the same meter that ensures your main fuse does not trip.

When it yields little

Honesty is honesty: charging on solar surplus is not the big win for everyone.

• Your car is at your workplace during the day. Then you miss most of the sun hours and charge mainly on solar during the weekend.
• It is winter. From November through February there is hardly any surplus on most days.
• You have a small system. With six panels, there is little left for the car after your own consumption.

In those cases, a dynamic energy contract with smart charging often yields more at night. The charging station or the app of your energy supplier then charges the car during the cheapest hours. That can be with the same charging station, so you do not have to choose.

Home battery, car or both?

A home battery and charging on solar do not bite each other. A plug-in battery such as the EcoFlow Stream AC 5000 stores around 5 kWh, enough to run your house on solar electricity for a while in the evening. For your car, that is too little. It takes care of the large surplus, the battery the evening.

And using your car itself as a home battery, so feeding electricity back into the house from the car in the evening? That is called bidirectional charging. It is coming, but in the Netherlands you cannot use it with most cars and charging stations yet. Read more about that in our article about V2G.

What you can arrange before January 1

• ✔ Find out if your charging station can charge on solar surplus, and which meter or module is needed for that.
• ✔ If you do not have that yet, order it now. You can plug a P1 dongle such as the HomeWizard into your smart meter yourself.
• ✔ Choose a charging mode in the app that suits you: solar only, or solar with a minimum.
• ✔ Set a departure time, so that the car is always sufficiently charged in the morning.
• ✔ Look at your energy contract: what do you get from 2027 onwards for feed-in, and do you pay feed-in costs? Sometimes another contract is more favorable.
• ✔ No charging station yet? Choose one that can charge on solar, and preferably automatically switches between 1- and 3-phase.

Frequently asked questions about net metering and charging on solar

Sources

• Dutch Government – Net metering scheme ends in 2027
• Consumentenbond – Feed-in costs and feed-in allowances
• Zonneplan – Feed-in allowance from 2027
• Solar Magazine – How to get the most out of your solar panels after 2027
• Milieu Centraal – Charging a car with solar panels
• cFos – Minimum charging current and phase switching (technical explanation, English)