Flexible Electricity Tariffs – A business case for batteries?

January 21st, 2023

The electricity trader Tibber passes the price on the energy exchange one-to-one to its private customers. They only have to pay a monthly fixed usage fee. In this podcast, our guests explain how dynamic (and accessible to customers!) electricity prices could provide an incentive to save – and even reduce absolute electricity consumption.

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Our guests quickly agree that electricity should be consumed more in the future if it is sustainably generated and available. Electricity pricing using the merit-order principle is already ideal for this. Because: The amount of electricity traded on the exchange automatically reflects producer prices: A lot of solar and wind power in the electricity mix means low electricity prices. Little available renewable energies tend to lead to high electricity prices on the exchange. Even if there are still many misunderstandings about “cheap nuclear power” and the use of fossil fuels, the fixed price mechanisms seem to go hand in hand with the sustainability goals in the energy market.

This price dynamic is now also gaining ground in the private electricity market: more and more customers of dynamic electricity tariffs are benefiting from price-controlled charging of electric cars or home storage systems. After all, charging can easily be linked to the electricity price that is now available to them and fluctuates greatly over time. The devices always charge when the price is low.

The biggest problem is currently the regulation: For years, the vehicle-to-grid concepts V2G have been prophesied to release a large lever in terms of network stability. However, it fails here due to (1) battery guarantees for e-cars, (2) tax obstacles and (3) a lack of business models.

Our guest Dr. Serafin von Roon finally made the following statement: “Only a few homes get through the winter without a network connection. However, if this is the declared goal, dynamic tariffs naturally take a back seat.”

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