Dynamic retail tariff

Commissioned by Naturstrom

Anselm Eicke, Jonathan Mühlenpfordt

2025

Only very few households in Germany have a dynamic electricity tariff, mainly because of the limited rollout of smart meters – and many households are unaware of the benefits. For Naturstrom, one of the ten largest German utilities, we quantified which household types would have benefited from a dynamic tariff over the previous twelve months. The largest financial gains accrue to households with electric vehicles, home batteries, and heat pumps that can be operated flexibly: a family with an EV and a heat pump can save €288 per year, rising to €985 when grid fee rebates and time-varying grid fees are included. Such flexibility also reduces renewables curtailment, and home batteries can pay off with dynamic tariffs even without a rooftop PV system. This report was originally published in German.