Netherlands opens the €8 billion SDE++ 2026 round for wind and solar

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The Netherlands' main renewable support scheme is open for applications. RVO, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, opened the SDE++ 2026 round on 27 October 2026 at 09:00 with a budget of €8 billion. Applications close on 26 November at 17:00. The round starts about a month later than the 22 September date the government set out to parliament in February.

Five phases, ranked by CO2 cost

SDE++ allocates budget by the subsidy each project needs per tonne of CO2 avoided, not by technology. The round runs in five phases. Phase 1 admits projects up to €75 per tonne and runs until 2 November. The ceiling then rises to €150 from 2 November, €225 from 9 November, €300 from 16 November and €400 from 23 November until the round closes. RVO handles applications in order of receipt. Anything submitted after 17:00 or on a non-working day counts as received the next working day.

For wind and solar this makes the requested amount a timing decision as well as a pricing one. A project whose subsidy need fits within a lower phase limit can file before applications at higher limits are admitted.

What wind and solar projects need to meet

Onshore wind is split into three categories, standard onshore, onshore with a height restriction near airfields and wind on flood defences, with base amounts set by wind-speed class. Repowering projects qualify only if the new turbine has at least 1 MW more nominal capacity than the old one, or if the old turbine ran for 15 years at the same location and was commissioned at least 13 years before the application.

Ground-mounted solar faces tighter design rules. All solar on land must be nature-inclusive, with at least 25% open space between panel tables seen from above. Panels must have a production footprint of at most 550 kg CO2 per kWp, backed by an environmental product declaration, although this does not have to be shown at application. A new category covers solar along roads and railways on land zoned for traffic, where build costs are higher.

Two grid rules shape the revenue case. Since the 2024 round, subsidy is paid only on electricity delivered to the grid. Most solar projects may also contract feed-in capacity for at most 50% of their peak capacity, with the exception of tracking systems and vertical systems on land.

Storage is not yet part of the scheme

Please note that the government told parliament in February that it cannot yet subsidise deferred delivery of renewable electricity via storage, because reliable data to set the support is lacking. It is exploring whether this becomes possible in a later round. For now, shifting renewable output through a co-located battery does not change the subsidy a project can receive.

Competition for the budget

The 2025 round shows how competitive the scheme has become. Applicants requested about €22 billion against the same €8 billion budget. RVO rejected two-thirds of applications, many of them because required permits were missing. 282 projects received about €7.9 billion. RVO also notes that applications for wind turbines and solar panels have been declining for several years.

That leaves SDE++ as a floor under the business case rather than the whole of it. With subsidy limited to grid-delivered volumes and solar feed-in capped at half of peak capacity, curtailment risk, negative price risk and balancing risk stay with the asset. PPA terms and capture prices decide much of the return. Synertics tracks PPA prices, capture prices and balancing data across European markets in SEMT. If you are sizing a Dutch wind or solar bid against a PPA or merchant route to market, you can start with SEMT at https://synertics.io/signup/ or reach us at info@synertics.io to discuss your portfolio in more detail.