Invoicing in the context of an energy-sharing project

When energy is shared, there is always at least one renewable energy producer sharing their surplus energy, and consumers who consume that energy.

Each month, Sibelga sends the single point of contact (SPOC) for your energy-sharing project an Excel file showing the volumes shared (kWh) within the sharing project and the associated network charges (€).

How do you access this data?

As soon as the sharing form has been validated, Sibelga sends the single point of contact, or any person authorised by them, a link to a private online folder (SharePoint). An Excel file containing the previous month's data is placed in this folder each month.

You can also opt for SFTP access if you have a fixed IP address.

If you wish to access this folder as a sharing project participant, you can request this from the single point of contact for the sharing project.

What do you see in this monthly file?

The members are identified on each line. Each line shows the volume of energy consumed or shared during the month, per meter, in kWh.

• The Tariff column shows how you are billed by your energy supplier: single hourly (TH) or dual hourly (HI = day, LOW = night). A customer may therefore be shown on two lines if they have a dual hourly rate.
• Volume Partagé (Shared Volume) shows the energy consumed from the sharing project.
• Volume Complémentaire (Supplementary Volume) shows the energy drawn from the network, outside of the sharing project.
• Injection Partagée (Shared Injection) shows the energy produced and injected into the sharing project.
• The last column, Gridfee total, shows the total amount in euros, excluding VAT, of the network charges that can be passed on to participating consumers for the month (to which it is necessary to add VAT where applicable). 
• The other columns (not visible above)  show the details of costs for each component of the network charges for the volumes shared each month.

Sibelga will send a single invoice to the SPOC for all network charges (Gridfee) at the time of settlement.

Optional: quarter-hourly file

If you wish, you can also receive a file each month detailing quarter-hourly consumption:

The members are identified on each line. Each line shows the volume of energy consumed or shared per quarter of an hour et per meter, in kWh.

Injection Résiduelle (Residual Injection) shows the energy produced and not consumed, injected into the network.

Invoicing by the SPOC

With these files, the SPOC has all the information they need to bill the various participants in the energy-sharing project. In this way, they can invoice each participant at the frequency they wish:

• the network charges due to Sibelga for the volumes shared with each participant;
• the energy consumption for each participant, at the rate agreed between them.

Payment of network charges to Sibelga

For all types of sharing, network charges are due for the volumes shared.

At the time of settlement, once a year or quarterly, the single point of contact will receive an invoice for network charges from Sibelga.

This invoice is the total sum of the network costs (Gridfee) in the Excel files sent each month to the single point of contact (plus any application of VAT). These are costs which they have already been able to pass on to the various participants throughout the year.

All the invoice details are therefore contained in these Excel files.

Invoicing participating consumers

As a consumer participating in an energy sharing project, you will receive two types of invoice.

• The invoices from the SPOC for the energy shared locally, including the network charges and energy, at a frequency defined between you.
• The payment invoices and the annual adjustment invoice from your supplier for the energy consumed outside of the sharing project, including the network charges and energy. 

On your energy supplier's adjustment invoice, you will see that the difference between the initial and final readings does not match the volume invoiced, because the latter has been adjusted by Sibelga.

The difference between the initial reading and the final reading is your total consumption (within and outside of the sharing project). However, only the supplementary volume that you draw directly from the network and not from the sharing project, is invoiced by your supplier.

Please note that since Sibelga must first carry out the calculations required for the sharing projects, your adjustment invoice may arrive later than usual.