What does the offer for external control actually entail?

Grid operators Enexis, Liander, and Stedin are working with energy suppliers such as Eneco, Essent, Vattenfall, Frank Energie, and Zonneplan on a system where households with a hybrid heat pump, charging station, or home battery grant permission for external control. When the power grid is at risk of becoming overloaded, often between 4:00 PM and 9:00 PM, the energy supplier can temporarily switch off your device. In return, you receive compensation, which can amount to several hundred euros per year.

It is voluntary, and you provide this consent once for an extended period. After that, the decision of when to switch off is no longer yours, but the energy supplier's, based on what the grid needs at that moment. You no longer have any influence over it.

From 2028, additional regulations will apply: smart controllability will then become a condition for qualifying for the ISDE heat pump subsidy. Anyone purchasing a heat pump now would do well to look at how a model handles that future requirement.

The difference with a heat pump that thinks for itself

There is another way to tackle the same problem, and it starts with the device itself rather than an external party. A heat pump with smart, built-in control continuously monitors dynamic energy prices, your own solar generation, and your consumption pattern, and adjusts its power consumption accordingly. Not because the grid demands it at that moment, but because it is more cost-effective for you.

A simple example: the heat pump heats the boiler during the day, when electricity is often cheaper or your solar panels are generating at full capacity, so that less power is needed in the evening, using your home as a thermal buffer that can store up to 56 kWh of energy. No external party intervening remotely, but the device thinking ahead on its own.

Martijn van de Ven, CEO of Weheat, explains the difference as follows: "With external control, a heat pump is simply switched on and off, like a light switch. A heat pump with its own intelligence works more subtly: it reacts continuously and gradually to peaks and troughs in power supply and price, and automatically shifts its consumption to times when there is surplus power. One system intervenes the moment the grid is already full. The other largely prevents the grid from becoming full, because consumption moves along with it continuously."

Which benefit suits you?

The offer from the grid operator and energy supplier is predictable: a fixed fee in exchange for control that you hand over for a longer period. The control is focused on the grid as a whole; all connected devices in a region react to the same signal, regardless of your own consumption pattern.

Weheat Intelligence works the other way around and looks at your situation: your home, your consumption pattern, your energy prices, your solar generation. This provides a more personalized saving than a regulation that flips the same switch for everyone in a region. This smart control is currently being tested with a limited group of users and will roll out this summer to everyone with a Weheat heat pump, aligning with the type of control the ISDE requirement is targeting from 2028 onwards.

Behind this lies a difference in expertise. Grid operators are experts on the grid; heat pump manufacturers are experts on the heat pump. Control from a party that knows the grid but has not developed the device itself is not without risk. Control from the device itself provides a different guarantee, not only for the grid but also for your comfort at home.

Who is the brains behind your heat pump?

There are several ways to solve grid congestion. One approach involves making your device available to the grid in exchange for a fixed fee. The other approach allows your device to intelligently adapt to dynamic prices, your own solar power generation, and your specific consumption patterns, keeping control within your own home.

Ultimately, you decide who is the brains behind your heat pump. With your energy supplier, control is remote. With the device itself, control stays with you, at home.

Do you want to stay in control of your energy consumption? Discover what a Weheat heat pump can do for your home.

Find out which heat pump is right for you