In his comment on our paper [J. Electrochem. Soc., 152, E138 (2005)], Metcalfe raised the question of how to deal with the electrostatic interaction of ions spilled over a metal surface from a solid electrolyte. In this answer we demonstrate that the suggestion of Metcalfe to add an excess term to the chemical potential mu leads to an inconsistency when Coulombic fields of adsorbed ions and counter charges have already been considered in a local electrostatic potential phi. An additional term in mu would thus correspond to a double counting of the same electrostatic interactions and has to be avoided. (c) 2006 The Electrochemical Society.