Flex-e electricity flexibility feasibility-study grant
A grant for large electricity users in Dutch grid-congestion areas to test the technical and financial feasibility of using electricity more flexibly.
Beskrivningen av den här finansieringen finns för närvarande på engelska.
Hire an independent adviser to assess promising measures, quantify how much electricity use can move to other times, and develop a conceptual technical design for your preferred measures. The study must show how this uses your contracted capacity—the maximum power you may use under your grid agreement—better and reduces local grid congestion. It must meet RVO’s minimum content requirements, including technical diagrams, costs and an implementation plan. Detailed engineering design is excluded.
The grant pays 50% of eligible study costs, including the adviser’s hours and necessary materials, with a grant between €10,000 and €125,000. You cover the remaining costs. A flexibility scan is recommended but is not required before applying for this study.
Eligibility
- Your company or organisation must be registered with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (KvK). The electricity connection covered by the application must be in the Netherlands, in a postcode area the grid operator has designated as experiencing congestion for electricity consumption.
- The connection must be greater than 3×80 amperes, with a metering-company contract to record consumption for the energy supplier and grid operator. You must hold the connection and transport agreement (ATO) with the grid operator. An owner or tenant can qualify if they hold that agreement; a tenant without their own ATO cannot apply.
- Your main business activities must not be energy generation, energy storage, energy trading or services that balance electricity supply and demand. You cannot carry out the study yourself or commission your parent or subsidiary company.
- A supplier of flexibility equipment must not conduct the study. You may consult a supplier for specialist knowledge needed for the technical-design part. The study must not include measures for combined heat and power installations, which generate electricity and useful heat together. Measures that limit renewable-energy generation (curtailment) are also excluded.
- You may apply for one Flex-e component at a time in a funding round. You can apply for a second component in the same round once the first is completed. No earlier subsidy may cover the same activity, including provincial, municipal or water-board grants; the Energy Investment Allowance (EIA) tax deduction can be combined with Flex-e.
- Your enterprise must not be an “undertaking in difficulty” under the EU rules. Use RVO’s decision form to check financial viability under those rules: having cash in the bank does not by itself establish eligibility. Submit the completed decision form and signed declaration.
- Finish the study within one year after receiving the subsidy, retain it for at least four years, and cooperate with the scheme’s evaluation. Request an extension from RVO if the completion deadline cannot be met.
How to apply
- Status
- stängd
- Öppnar
- Stänger
- Villkor för ansökningsomgången
- Complete applications are assessed in order of receipt, within the available budget.
Apply through RVO using eHerkenning level 2+ or higher. Identify the connection by its EAN code; separate establishments or connected companies can apply individually. Complete applications are assessed in order of receipt.
Submit a quotation signed by you and the adviser that specifies the work, specialists, timetable, report and itemised costs excluding VAT. The quotation or commission must be conditional on subsidy approval. Include your organisation and establishment details, connection evidence and the financial-viability decision form and declaration. If you cannot obtain a copy of your own ATO, the legal rules allow a grid-operator invoice no more than two months old showing contracted capacity, network level, EAN code and customer name.
RVO normally decides within eight weeks and may extend this once by eight weeks. Grants up to and including €25,000 are advanced in full; larger grants receive a 90% advance. For a grant above €25,000, apply for final determination immediately after completing the study and attach it; RVO then pays the final 10%. For grants up to and including €25,000, you do not apply for final determination yourself, but RVO may request the study and its non-confidential findings.