My ESNA

username
password
Remember login

Password reminder

The May edition of the

Newsletter is available!

Unreliable Dutch energy policy;
After long discussions, Dutch politicians still haven’t understood the necessity of massive Smart Meter rollout

Herewith the ESNA Board declares its strong disappointment with the outcome of the debate in the Senate of the Dutch Parliament and is appalled by the conclusion the Dutch Government drawn by the Minister of Economic Affairs, Ms Verhoeven on April the 6th.

The Dutch Government and Parliament, supported by European legislation, are since 1996 involved in opening the Dutch energy market with the aim to promote financial benefits for Consumers, Trade and Industry. In addition, they have expressed their ambition to oblige the same target groups to reduce in a structural way the fossil energy consumption by 20% and therewith the greenhouse gas emissions also by 20% and to fill this 20% energy gap with local generation of sustainable energy in the year 2020.

To allow energy suppliers to differentiate their rates and conditions, a necessity for the competition in the open energy market, it is necessary to measure continuously the energy consumption. Without permanent measurement, the consumer will have no financial benefit from the open energy market, it will be impossible to offer time-shift contracts to reduce the consumption at peak hours and to promote the shift of consumption to cheaper block hours.

For our ambitions, on energy saving as well as on climate change, if we take them seriously; smart meters are essential. They measure and report how much energy we consume and when, if you take energy saving seriously, now you can prove your contribution with facts, and figures, this asks a much stronger involvement as just proudly replacing a light-bulb by a energy saving lamp. Smart meter will also avoid the moral and financial choc when the final energy bill will arrive because the information about your energy consumption and its costs are continuously available, with or without energy saving activities.

The mass rollout of the Smart Meter to all household is simple a necessity, if we like both projects to have a fair serious chance of success.

At the level of a street, village, city, province and even as a country we, as a community, can continuously keep track where we are on the energy and or climate change roadmap, which allows us to determine the next highlights in the accompanying communication campaign to reach our common objective.
For the local renewable energy production, smart meters play a crucial role. Almost all types of Smart Meters used in the Dutch trials have the possibility to measure in quantity and time of the energy amount delivered to the Network, so also here the open Market rules can be applied, this in contradiction of what has been opposed in De Tweede Kamer of the Dutch parliament even a year ago.

For the network operators, smart meters are essential for a good balance of the distribution network in order to secure the energy and quality and to minimise the energy losses, which is a significant energy saving.

Smart Meters opponents refer to the possibility that their individual privacy might be violated, on one hand by hackers and on the other hand by network operators and energy suppliers.
Hacking the meter and its communication protocol, the in the world renowned Dutch cryptographic Institute, LaQuSo, a collaboration between the Technical University in Eindhoven and the Radboud University in Nijmegen, tested for NUON NES smart meters and their communication over the electricity network to the ICT systems to store and process the meter data. They have come to the conclusion that this system is as secured and safe as the Internet payment systems of banks.
Concerning the privacy protection at the level of the network operators and suppliers, in this area applies the Personal Data Protection Act.

NES meters and its associated infrastructure are inherently secure and it is proven technology. In Europe, more than 30 million NES smart meters, installed over the past 10 years, do their job to full satisfaction, for both the consumer and for the network operator.

As mentioned we as ESNA are confused about the statement of the Dutch Senate and the corresponding conclusion of the Dutch government.

We are convinced that:

1.    The Dutch government has no serious intentions concerning the liberalisation of the Dutch energy market. Their half-hearted approach ensures that the introduction of smart meters on a voluntary basis will cost us as society much more and will offer us much less as predicted.

2.    The Dutch government executes no active policy on energy saving and on the climate change objectives. Energy saving and climate change are not unique Dutch affairs. In several EU Member States, these problems are vigorously addressed, as a logical consequence large-scale introduction of smart meters. The Netherlands, initially pioneering on these subjects, is now wide behind.

3.    Unfortunately The Netherlands will not fulfil the European directives, unanimously agreed by all EU Member States.

The Dutch government missed the opportunity to set a step forward in the liberalisation process of the energy market and the execution to reach the target in the Climate Change.

This subject is again in the hands of the Tweede Kamer of the Dutch parliament; We hope that they will go-ahead to solve this problem as soon as possible so that introduction of smart meters can take place in due time, as a major step towards an energy management eco-system.

Harry Crijns
ESNA secretary
Tel: +31 6 53 22 53 82
harry@esna.org

My ESNA

Quick links