On behalf of NVDE, the umbrella organisation of all renewable energy companies in the Netherlands, Common Futures collected and issued a set of recommendations to the Dutch government regarding its energy saving obligation for companies and institutions. Many of the recommendations were included in the reinforcement and extension of the obligation on January 1st 2023.
The energy-saving obligation targets companies with an annual consumption of more than 50,000 kWh of electricity or 25,000 m3 of natural gas. The companies are required to implement any relevant energy-saving measures on the list of recognised measures, featuring energy-saving measures with a payback time of up to five years. The energy-saving obligation was updated to cover more energy-saving measures and industrial actors.
In the run-up to the updated energy-saving obligation, NVDE (the Dutch Association for Sustainable Energy) asked Common Futures to make a set of recommendations to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate (EZK) to tighten the law, with the aim of better connecting with industry and entrepreneurs, and more effective enforcement. Based on discussions with industry actors, EZK, law enforcement and installers, Common Futures has compiled a report with nine substantiated recommendations to the Dutch Minister of Climate and Energy. Besides its consideration in the obligation’s update, the report was widely covered in media, amongst others on the Dutch news site nu.nl, and motivated parliament member Henri Bontebal to ask the cabinet to respond to the suggestions.
Common Futures managed to develop some excellent recommendations for us to work with: a set of well-founded, realistic policy measures which can make the energy saving obligation a success. By now, much of those have been taken over in the policy revision.
Olof van der Gaag
President at NVDE
