Netherlands
The Netherlands has no FiT, yet. The Dutch Cabinet has agreed on 27 March 2009, to implement some parts of a feed-in tariff during a renegotiation of the government agenda in response to the global financial crisis. The proposed regulation may adjust the quota incentive system. But in the summer of 2009, The Netherlands have a subsidy system. The subsidy budget has quota for diverse types of energy, at several ten’s of million EUR. The budget for wind is hardly used, because the tariffs are too low.
The 2009 budget for Wind on Land was 900 MW (incl unused 400 MW from 2008), only 2,5 MW was used. Dutch utilities have no obligation to buy energy from windparks. The tariffs change yearly, to compensate the change in market prices. This creates uncertain investment conditions. The current subsidy system was introduced in 2008. The previous subsidy scheme stopped in 2005 because it became “too expensive”. In 2009, dutch windparks are still being built with grants from the old scheme. The old and new subsidy scheme is fed from the general budget.
The most probable change towards the FiT, is that the subsidy budget will be fed with a small increase of the kWh price. The quota remain. An evaluation is planned for 2010.