Dutch green-gas bill clears lower house: manure eligibility preserved, proposed target cut rejected

The House of Representatives approved the bill on 6 October 2026 and sent it to the Senate. It rejected amendments that would have barred manure-derived gas and halved the published obligation pathway, and adopted four amendments on customer benefit and oversight. The obligation is not yet in force.

Senate approval, formal enactment and commencement by royal decree remain outstanding. The 1 January 2027 start is proposed, not fixed.

Amendment No. 48, which would have barred manure-derived gas from generating GGEs, was rejected.

Amendment No. 45 would have capped the obligation at 1.425 Mt CO₂e a year from 2031, half the 2.85 Mt in the published design.

Buy-out revenue must benefit customers; annual monitoring, parliamentary scrutiny and a three-year evaluation were added.

The Dutch House of Representatives approved the Wet bijmengverplichting groen gas on 6 October 2026, moving the proposed national green-gas obligation to the Senate. The obligation is not yet in force: Senate approval, formal enactment and commencement remain outstanding.[1]

The implementing proposals envisage a 1 January 2027 start. However, commencement of the legislation must be determined by royal decree.[3]

Lower-house approval strengthens the prospect of implementation without guaranteeing that start date.

Despite its “blending obligation” name, compliance would be measured through supply-chain greenhouse-gas reductions, rather than a fixed percentage of gas by volume.[2]

Obligated parties: Gas suppliers serving sectors covered by EU ETS2.
Compliance unit: Tradable green-gas units, known as GGEs, each representing one kilogram of CO₂-equivalent reduction.
Evidence: Guarantees of origin and sustainability documentation underpin the qualifying gas.
Alternative route: Buy-out: an exemption from part or all of the annual obligation against payment (see 06).

1 GGE = 1 kg CO₂e reduction across the supply chain
1 Mt CO₂e = 1 billion GGEs

Full analysis · Netherlands

The Netherlands’ proposed green-gas obligation, analysed in detail This update covers the 6 October House votes. The obligation design itself is examined in the desk’s full analysis.

Read the full analysis

Policy impact analysis biomethane.endepth.ai

The House rejected restrictions on feedstock eligibility and the scale of the obligation, while adding consumer protection and stronger oversight. The principal decisions were as follows.[4]

6 amendments · 6 Oct 2026 2 rejected · 4 adopted

Rejected · 2

Adopted · 4

Limits on feedstock and scale Customer benefit and parliamentary oversight

Amendment House decision Effect on the proposal

Decisions recorded in the Senate’s official overview of the 6 October House votes.[4] Select a row to read the analysis.

Teunissen’s amendment would have excluded renewable gas produced using animal manure as a feedstock from the GGE register. This was more than an additional reporting requirement: it would have prevented that gas from generating compliance units. The proposer’s stated concern was that supporting manure digestion could entrench intensive livestock production by creating long-term demand for manure.[5]

Its rejection matters particularly because the proposed obligation rewards emissions savings across the supply chain. The government’s explanatory memorandum identifies manure digestion — especially when combined with rapid manure removal from livestock housing — as a pathway that can benefit from credited reductions in methane emissions from manure storage. Those avoided emissions can increase the compliance value associated with a given quantity of gas.[6]

GGEs from a quantity of gas = verified supply-chain reduction, kg CO₂e
manure digestion can add = credited avoided methane from manure storage

For agricultural biomethane developers, the vote preserves a potential route to revenue, while the value of that route still depends on verified emissions performance and commercial terms.

Van den Berg’s proposed statutory ceiling was not simply a safeguard against unspecified future increases. Its stated purpose was to constrain the published obligation pathway to approximately 50%. From 2031 onwards, it would have imposed an annual ceiling of 1.425 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent reductions, compared with the 2.85 million tonnes envisaged in the published policy design.[7]

Rejecting that amendment avoids a substantial restriction on prospective certificate demand. It does not, however, increase the government’s proposed ambition or lock the published annual requirements into primary legislation. Those requirements remain matters for the implementing decree.

The buy-out mechanism allows a supplier to obtain an exemption from part or all of its annual obligation against payment. It is an alternative compliance route, not a fine. The draft ministerial regulation proposes a payment of €450 per tonne of CO₂-equivalent reduction in 2027. That figure remains a proposed implementing parameter, rather than a producer tariff established by the House vote.[3]

Route A · Surrender GGEs

1 kg CO₂e / GGE

Suppliers acquire tradable units backed by guarantees of origin and sustainability documentation for qualifying green gas.

Route B · Pay buy-out

€450 / t CO₂e · 2027

Proposed in the draft ministerial regulation. Equivalent to €0.45 per kilogram, the quantity one GGE represents.

Buy-out proceeds → must benefit customers: direct price support or investments intended to reduce their costs.

Grinwis’s accepted amendment addresses what happens to the resulting revenue. It requires the proceeds to benefit customers, including through direct price support or investments intended to reduce their costs. The explanatory text also allows an equivalent amount of funding to be used for that purpose.

The rationale is that customers could otherwise bear costs passed through by suppliers even where the supplier pays for an exemption rather than securing corresponding green-gas reductions. The customer-benefit provision may make the policy more politically durable by addressing affordability concerns.

For producers, the more immediate commercial issue remains the availability and price of buy-out. Because suppliers can pay for an exemption, the headline obligation need not translate entirely into physical green-gas procurement. The buy-out price provides an alternative cost against which suppliers can assess purchasing GGEs.

The accepted oversight amendments make the obligation more accountable, but not necessarily more predictable throughout a project’s operating life.

Annual monitoring report

Statutory evaluation

Amended: 3 years Was: 5 years

0 1 2 3 4 5

The minister will report to both parliamentary chambers. The amendment’s explanatory text envisages distinguishing actual green-gas use from buy-out, domestic production from imports, and total Dutch output from the quantity used for compliance. It also envisages assessing whether supply availability, costs or implementation problems justify reducing future requirements or taking other action. Monitoring therefore offers better market information while creating a regular opportunity to question the trajectory.[8]

A four-week scrutiny period applies to rules determining the obligation and buy-out price before the relevant formal step, with an exception concerning initial rules. The amendment strengthens parliamentary involvement while preserving the government’s ability to set and adjust these parameters through secondary legislation.[9]

Bringing the statutory review deadline forward from five years to three, the proposer’s explanation calls for consideration of affordability, the decline in overall gas consumption, the agricultural transition and potential environmental effects.[10]

Four steps stand between the House vote and commencement