Smart retail tariffs

Commissioned by LichtBlick

Lion Hirth, Ingmar Schlecht, Jonathan Mühlenpfordt, Anselm Eicke

2023

Dynamic retail tariffs unlock decentralized flexibility, but the energy crisis showed their downside: rising spot prices hit customers’ bills directly, with severe social and political consequences. For the utility LichtBlick, we developed a dynamic tariff with price insurance: it specifies an annual volume, an hourly consumption profile, and a fixed price – households that consume as contracted pay exactly that price, while every deviation is settled at the spot price, preserving full flexibility incentives. We also developed a proposal for time-varying grid fees. This report was originally published in German.