The meter stops running backwards end of 2030
Compensation within each tariff window runs to the end of 2030 for installations certified before 2024. It is a fixed deadline, and it can be prepared for.
Updated on 14 September 2026
What "within each window" actually means
Until now, the meter running backwards was read over the year: what you exported in July offset what you drew in January. Under the new structure, the offset happens inside each tariff window.
In other words, electricity exported at 13:00 offsets what you draw during hours of the same kind, not what you pull at 19:00. Output leaving for the network at midday no longer buys back an evening load.
The arrangement stays open until the end of 2030 for installations certified before 2024. After that it stops, and nothing replaces it.
The gain is no longer annual, it is daily
While the offset was annual, the hour at which you consumed did not matter. It matters now, and from 2031 it will matter entirely.
The consequence is that an installation from before 2024 is no longer aiming to produce a lot, but to line up its output with its consumption. That is an electrical installation problem, not a panel problem.
Four years is short for paying off a battery and long for postponing the decision. It is precisely the window in which the arithmetic gets done properly, once, on recorded data.
What has to be decided before the end of 2030
- Move consumption towards the middle of the day
- The cheapest of the three levers and the best return per euro spent: cylinder, charge point, dishwasher, heat pump.
- Store it
- A battery keeps what used to leave for the network. Decided on measurements, never on a catalogue.
- Extend or rebuild
- An installation takes its regime from its certification date. Any modification is therefore first a question about that regime, to be checked with the network operator before the work rather than after.
What we look at on an existing installation
- The certification date, which sets the regime, rather than the date the panels went on.
- The type of meter, and whether the smart function is active.
- The export curve of a clear day, set against the evening consumption curve.
- The inverter, its age, and whether it accepts a battery without being replaced.
- The board, because output that has to control circuits presupposes controllable circuits.
Tell us what is in your consumer unit
Describe what sits on your board and we will say what can be shifted and what cannot. By phone on +32 495 88 75 92 or through the questionnaire.
Sources for this page
- CWaPE, press pack, new low-voltage distribution tariffs for 2026Checked on 2026-09-14
- Public Service of Wallonia, the two-rate schedule changes on 1 January 2026Checked on 2026-09-14