How a reversing meter used to work
With an analog meter and no separate production meter, the meter only registered net flow: if more electricity flowed back into the grid than was used, the meter ran backward. The result was implicit compensation — one kWh fed in weighed exactly as much as one kWh consumed, no matter what time of day that happened.
Analog vs Digital Meters: How Solar Feed-In Is Measured Now
A digital meter registers consumption and injection as two entirely separate quantities, per 15-minute quarter-hour. There's no more automatic "running back": what you feed in at noon and what you use in the evening are two separate measurements — even if the net total for the day is the same. That quarter-hourly level of detail is exactly why a dynamic or variable contract can give a different outcome than a fixed one: the timing of usage and feed-in now counts separately, not just the yearly total.
Injection Tariffs and the Prosumer Tariff: What You Actually Get Paid
Without the implicit compensation of a reversing meter, what you receive for your feed-in depends on your contract's injection tariff (sometimes 0, sometimes a fixed amount, sometimes tied to the spot price) and the prosumer tariff — a network-related cost for anyone feeding into the grid through a production installation. The exact rules and tariffs for this change periodically and differ by grid area; you'll find the current situation on your regional regulator's website or through your grid operator — we deliberately don't recalculate that ourselves here.
What stays the same: your own quarter-hourly data as the basis
Regardless of meter type, the core stays the same: to know which contract is most advantageous for you, you calculate using your own real usage and feed-in pattern — not an average assumption. With a digital meter, that quarter-hourly file is available right away via Mijn Fluvius (in Flanders).