In short: Since November 1, 2026, NextEnergy has been using home batteries to relieve pressure on the power grid during busy periods. This is called congestion management. Do you live in a congestion area, and do we control your battery? Then you automatically participate and receive €0.15 per kW per day as compensation.
What is grid congestion?
At certain times, many people use electricity simultaneously. The local power grid is then at risk of becoming overloaded. This is called grid congestion.
What is congestion management?
With congestion management, we use home batteries intelligently to relieve pressure on the power grid:
- Charging in advance: 24 to 48 hours before an expected busy period, we make sure your battery is charged.
- Discharging during the busy period: during the congestion period, your battery discharges. Your household then draws less or no electricity from the grid. A congestion period lasts 2 hours.
The rest of the time, your battery simply charges and trades intelligently, as you’re used to.
Do I participate in congestion management?
You automatically participate if you meet both conditions:
- You live in a congestion area. These currently include the provinces of Gelderland, Utrecht, and Flevoland, and part of North Brabant. You can check on our website whether your ZIP code is eligible:
What can your home battery (or EV charger) earn? | NextEnergy - You have a home battery controlled by NextEnergy (currently not available for the plug-in battery!)
The control mode you selected does not matter.
How do I check whether I participate? Open the NextEnergy app and go to Usage. Do you see a banner about congestion management there? Then you participate. If you don’t see the banner, you don’t participate.
Do I need to sign up?
No. When you connected your battery, you already gave permission for us to trade with your battery. Congestion management is a new market on which your battery trades and for which you receive compensation. You therefore don’t need to sign up separately.
How much compensation will I receive?
You receive €0.15 per kW per day that your battery participates. The compensation depends on the power your battery can deliver for 2 hours. For this, we look at:
- the maximum discharge power of your battery (kW)
- the capacity of your battery (kWh)
- the minimum and maximum charging limits you have set
- the average performance of a battery in practice. Batteries often perform slightly less well than specified on paper.
Example: a 10 kWh battery with 5 kW of power and charging limits of 10% and 90% can deliver approximately 3.6 kW in practice. The compensation is then 3.6 × €0.15 = €0.54 per day. That’s an average of about €16.43 per month.
Where can I see my personal compensation? In the app. Tap the banner in Usage and select “Read what this means.” There you’ll see your personal compensation per month, calculated based on your battery and settings. The website also has a calculator. It only looks at power, not capacity and charging limits. The amount in the app is therefore the leading figure.
Will I also receive money if my battery is not used?
Yes. You receive the compensation because you make your battery available, not for every time it is used. So how often a congestion period occurs does not affect your compensation.
Why is my compensation different from my neighbors’?
The compensation depends on the power your battery can deliver for 2 hours. This differs by battery and depends on its power, capacity, and your charging limits. That’s why not everyone receives the same amount.
Does congestion management affect my trading results?
The congestion compensation is separate from your trading results; you receive it on top of them. However, using your battery for congestion management can affect how your battery trades at other times.
Where can I see the compensation in the app?
- Usage: a banner showing that you participate. Tap it to see your monthly compensation.
- NextEnergy Benefit: the compensation is added daily to your NextEnergy Benefit.
- Insights page for your battery: here you can see when your battery was used for congestion management.
What happens if my battery has a malfunction?
In the event of a temporary malfunction, your compensation continues as usual. Is your battery in an error status for 5 consecutive days? Then it no longer participates in congestion management, and the compensation stops. We don’t notify you automatically about this yet. You can check it yourself: if you no longer see the banner in Usage, you no longer participate.
Can I stop participating in congestion management?
Yes, contact our customer service to do so. You can’t unsubscribe yourself in the app yet.
Please note: stopping congestion management also means that your battery will no longer trade at all. You can then only use it for your own consumption (self-consumption). This means you’ll miss out on both your trading results and the congestion compensation.
Will this also be available for other devices?
At this time, only home batteries participate. In the future, we may also offer congestion management for heat pumps, EV chargers and electric cars, and plug-in batteries.
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