Last group of solar panel owners gets digital meters
Next week, grid company Fluvius will send out the first invitations to customers with solar panels where digital energy meters have yet to be installed. From the end of 2024, they can no longer delay. In total, Fluvius has already installed 553,500 digital electricity meters at solar panel owners in Flanders. So at 403,000 homes, apartments and small businesses with solar panels, this will now be done in the course of 2025.
The technical teams of Fluvius will start working all over Flanders as of January. The invitations to the affected customers will be sent about 3 months before the planned conversion date. For customers with natural gas, the gas meter will be also be replaced.
Delay after abolishing 'rolling back counter' expires
Back in time: the Constitutional Court ruling in early 2021 overturned the principle of the "counting back" meter. As a result, the Flemish energy legislation had to be amended. The group of prosumers with solar panels younger than 15 years old and installed before Jan. 1, 2021, was given a reprieve by the minister to install a digital meter until the end of 2024. That period will soon expire, so all affected customers will have to get a digital meter in 2025.
Most of the meters will be replaced by the 3 experienced digital meter contractor groups (3DM, Unit-T and TEAPlus). They will replace about 30,000 per month. Each contractor group is responsible for a specific part of Flanders and works with different installation teams that will replace the meters street by street and neighborhood by neighborhood. Customers can get an indication of the period in which we will visit them via www.fluvius.be/planningschecker.
Meter replacement is free of charge and takes about an hour. For some customers, in addition to the meter replacement, additional works are required, such as adjusting the meter box or replacing the connection cable. Those works will also be scheduled during 2025.
Necessary for energy transition and financial benefits
In the coming decades, we will replace more and more diesel, gasoline, heating oil and natural gas with sustainably generated electricity. As a result, there will be a lot of new solar panels, heat pumps and electric cars. And that, in particular, will put pressure on our current electricity grid.
If we want to avoid grid problems, we need to rethink our power system and build the grids for tomorrow today. On the one hand, we need to strengthen our power grid where necessary. And on the other hand, we need to use energy more intelligently and consume as much as possible when the sun shines and the wind blows. And each time, digital meters are indispensable to do that. They put households and businesses in charge of their energy consumption and they provide Fluvius with the right information to tackle the grids in the most targeted way possible.
The digital meter also offers prosumers some important financial benefits. As a solar panel owner with a digital meter, you don't pay a prosumer tariff anymore and you can sell your surplus solar power to your energy supplier. You also have all the information you need to match your consumption to the times when your solar panels generate power, such as through your water heater settings or a smart plug. In addition, you are at the wheel to keep your consumption peak, on the basis of which you pay grid charges, as low as possible. Many prosumers are also entitled to a retroactive investment premium if they have a digital meter installed on time. The new meter does not change anything about green energy certificates.
More than 60% already have digital meter
By the end of September, 3,974,000 digital meters for electricity and gas had already been installed in Flanders. More than 6 in 10 homes, apartments and small businesses already have them installed. No fewer than 708,000 households actively monitor their energy consumption via my.fluvius.be. Some 182,000 households also use a smart app or control system for this purpose.
Fluvius has already installed 553,500 digital electricity meters at solar panel owners in Flanders. 403,000 customers in this target group have yet to receive them by 2025. More info: www.fluvius.be/digitalemeter.
Lara Lammens